cold or hot smoking meats in our ovens?

[waynebergman]

Has anyone tried cold or hot smoking anything in one of our wonderful ovens. Thinking of building a smoker for some Salmon I will be getting in the next little while and I thought maybe my oven might work. I do have a door for my oven that holds in heat, not sure if that would help make this work or not. Figured I better ask others before wasting good fish on this one. Thanks in advance for this ....wayne

[RTflorida]

Re: cold or hot smoking meats in our ovens?

Cold smoking I have only tried in a smoker I specifically built for the purpose, but have only used a few times. The problem for me in cold smoking is the fact that you are not supposed to go above 80 throughout the process.....which limits me to the coolest day of Jan. & Feb.

I've used my oven on many occasion for hot smoking (Pork butt, ribs, brisket, even corn on the cobb). I'm not a smoking purist, I tend to error on the high side with my temps - in the 250-275 range. I let the oven cool down, throw in a handful of coals and place wood chunks and chips on top, put the door in place - but leave it cracked to keep a bit of air flowing to let the wood smolder...Everything comes out great...everytime.

RT

[Loren]

Re: cold or hot smoking meats in our ovens?

Hi Wayne,

Nice job on your oven! I like the copper work.

I was just about to post a question about smoking. I did some ribs and they came out nice. First I fired up the oven to about 200 degrees, after that I let the heat die down a bit and smoked the ribs for about an hour (the ribs were at 100 degrees), then pulled them out and fired the oven a little bit more to get some heat up and put them back in for about 2 hours. The meat fell off the bone and they had a nice smoke taste to them. That was the first time I tried smoking anything in the oven and it worked out great. I was actually thinking of building a smoke generator for the oven but there is no need for it, I have done a lot of smoking in the past and the oven worked out great. If you waned to do some cold smoking you may need to have an external source so you can keep the heat down like RT said. I have not done any fish in the oven but I am sure it would work out fine, it would be nice to build some type of rack for the fish.

I would like to do a whole pig some day so I was thinking of making some type of pig/rib sled so I could slide it in and out and keep the pig or ribs suspended off the floor so they do not get so much heat from the floor of the oven. I took a look at some of the info on roasting a whole pig and goat in the forum so that helped. The problem with the ribs were that the smoke did not circulate around them because they were sitting on the baking sheets, if I get them on racks that will definitely help to circulate the heat and smoke.

I am trying to find other recipes to try the next batch of ribs. Does anyone have any information or good web sites to check out? I have looked here but I did not get much when I searched. Once I saw a section on just smoking and roasting on some website, not sure if was here or not but I can't find it now.

Loren

[waynebergman]

Re: cold or hot smoking meats in our ovens?

Thanks Loren
Good pictures and tips. Do you have a feel for what kind of shelf life the meat or fish would have after hot smoking. Is this method for hot smoking just going to give the flavor of a smoked meat or will it also be like a preserving quality so you could keep it in the fridge for a few weeks after smoking. I get the feeling some smoked meats like jerky, they will last for a long time after smoking. This is what I was wanting to accomplish with any smoking I might try in the oven....wayne

[Loren]

Re: cold or hot smoking meats in our ovens?

Wayne,

I use to smoke a lot of salmon and jerky, also some bacon and pork. The more salt you use the longer it will last, that being said I am trying to stay away from salt because of health reasons. That is one reason I started making my own sausage, so I could control the salt and fat content. Anyway when I use to smoke salmon (salmon fishing was closed last season and this season in California) I would smoke at least 10 pounds at a time, more like 20 and it would easily last a week in the frig. By the time I gave some away and ate what I had it would usually not last a week You will loose about 2/3 of the weight of whatever you are smoking through the process.

I would just cut the salmon in to steaks, brine it, air dry it before smoking, and let it smoke for about 4 - 6 hours. It is almost like a "cooked" smoke salmon. More of an Indian style not lox.

Jerky is very easy to make. I usually use a brisket or flank steak, partially freeze it so it is easy to slice in a meat slicer, then brine it and air dry it. I use to make it in my home oven by getting liquid smoke from the SausageMaker.com (not the stuff in the supermarket) and adding it to the brine, that will give it a nice smoke without smoke. Just turn the oven on low and put a pan of water in the bottom of the oven, leave a wine cork in the door to keep it open a bit. Then turn the oven off, come back in an hour and turn the oven on for 10 minutes, off for an hour? just play around with it, you will know when it is dry enough. Careful with the salt and soy, they go a long way. One recipe I followed was so salty I had to throw away the whole batch because you could not eat it. Jerky will last 2 weeks easy but like I said before it is usually gone long before that

I have never done any of these in the wood oven yet but I will some day. My oven is a Scott style bread oven with a fire place right below the oven. I would like to start a smoke fire in the pit below the oven and channel the smoke in to the oven some day. That will keep the temp down.

If you go here you can a pic of the oven to see what I am talking about. http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/f3/n...oven-3074.html

You don't need much heat for the jerky or salmon, give it a try, it's easy. Jerky is probably easier to start with, just make sure you have some racks for them to rest on while smoking.

If you need any other info let me know.

Loren