Taking up smoking...

[Steve Maskery]

Biltong I'd heard of, droewors is a new one on me. But I'm prepared to try anything at least once (even done the Morris Dancing when I was about 10, but have always stopped short of the other...).

It's a pity that I'm simply not hungry these days

 

[Geoff_S]

I've tried a few techniques for smoked salmon.

First is dry cure. Great results and you end up with a firmer, not so moist result.

Second is the a brine cure, a bit softer and more moist.

Both of those, but freeze the salmon for a few days first. It helps break down the moisture in the salmon. So in both instances you get a slightly less moist product.

Then all of those but hot smoke and cold smoke.

Then you have a go at hot smoking chicken.

Then cure some bacon, and also try a sweet cure. Use as is or then smoke it.

Then start making sausages.

And finally wash it all down with some home brew.

 

[Steve Maskery]

I do sausages from time to time. Sheftalia is a favourite, as I don't need casings and I have a bag full of caul fat in the freezer.
It's years since I've done home brew, wouldn't mind starting again. Got rid of all my kit, though.

On a more general culinary theme, I seem to have developed an intolerance of bread. I've made bread for 40 years and now, suddenly it doesn't agree with me. . But I've made rye bread, which was tasty but heavy, and tonight I've made rye soda bread, which is most very excellent.

 

[Tasky]

Biltong I'd heard of, droewors is a new one on me. But I'm prepared to try anything at least once.

You'd need to try several different kinds and wetnesses, to establish your particulat preferences, but that's all part of the fun... as is trying various recipes for variants and flavours. We have several shops nearby that specialise in this stuff!!

It's a pity that I'm simply not hungry these days

Make it anyway - If you're even half-decent, you'll find a wealth of customers for it!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I had - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listi ... d&qid=&sr= it's quite good.
One book I have suggests rosemary twigs or soaked walnut shells. Weber's Charcoal Grilling suggests rosemary for smoking vegetables, oak and hickory for beef and lamb, pecan cherry and apple for pork, apple and pecan for chicken, and for fish alder or mesquite.

 

[topchippyles]

I have loads of oak sawdust and shavings if anyone if looking.

 

[Steve Maskery]

I had - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listi ... d&qid=&sr= it's quite good.

Thanks, Phil, duly ordered, along with a couple of others. Don't you just hate suggestive marketing?

Thank you to all the rest of you for your contributions, too, much appreciated.

 

[Bm101]

In my post above I mentioned the garden centre bags I saw Topchippy. They were maybe 6-8" by 10". Natural type packaging clearly meant for a certain crowd. Neutral brown, green print, very eco friendly looking. No bad thing but clearly a marketing move (same as every other we love everybody we're a bit kooky buy our ice cream ben and jerry type, (we are not run by accountants malarkey) look here's a funny picture of a cow to prooooove it.
It's advertising. But nothing special. Hardest part would be convincing the buying team for a chain of garden centres to give it shelf space then keeping up with the admin and delivery logistics.

Point is these people were selling, let's be generous, 10 x 12" bags of chippings, not sawdust.
Done the initial branding, legwork, running of a business etc etc.
I'm not saying it's easy peasy.
But they were selling at something like £6/8 pound a bag. A Bag! Think about that for a second!

Alright, nothing's ever really that simple in the real world but it's worth knowing if you haven't heard that people might pay these prices for a waste product.. Especially if you happened to own a mill and probably had to pay to get rid of it... It might be useful. :|

My brother has a better job than I do working for a biggish company. Everyone from the UK will have seen their vans doing roadworks, putting drains down etc etc etc. The fella who owns that firm worked out that Councils were wasting a lot of money each year clearing drains of debris. Then they were paying to landfill it. So he built a plant specifically. Then he charged the councils to clear the drains with specially built magical lorries. Then he saved millions by not land filling it. Instead he took it all to his magical new factory where he washed it all, sorted it all and turned it back into building materials that he could use to build stuff for the councils.
Then all his road crews flushed a load of waste down the same drains on their next wave of road improvements! And people throw the word Genius about while describing halfwits like Einstein and Hawkin.

Heartwarming tale and relevant.
What more can you ask for as we sidle up to Christmas ? =D>

Getting back on topic, do we generally dampen or soften chips before smoking?
Was common practice at the fishmongers. Not heard you amateurs mention it.


Cheers
Chris

 

[Steve Maskery]

I guess we amateurs have a lot to learn
I'll soak next time and report back.

 

[marcros]

I have a smoke box that I put on the gas BBQ, which might be slightly different. I soak the chips for an hour or two before using them.

 

[Bm101]

I'm talking damping now Steve. Let's not go overboard. We're not on the not the Titanic quite yet mate!

*raises arms, starts singing.......You. meeeeeee, ev- er- ything weeeee seeeeeeeeeeeeee*

Just like being there.

A little known fact about the Titanic. Now we are bang on topic.
I've just discovered that there were loads of dogs.
Ok. Some dogs. Quite a few kennelled. Makes sense really. Love dogs and this makes me sad.
Thinking about it there were probably horses. This makes it inordinately sad. Why were they never worth a mention?


There was actually a dog show due the day or near enough after of the sinking.
A couple of small vicious snappy crap dog breeds did actually survive in lifeboats.
Probably at the expense of orphan children while held under the shawls of inordinately wealthy women.
Money is a wonderful and corrupting influence on the soul. Unless you have it of course.
Focusing on the important issues.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I'll have a pint of what you're on. Two, even. It is my official O.A.P becoming day, after all.

 

[marcros]

happy birthday Phil!

 

[Steve Maskery]

Dogs were not the only animals on the Titanic. Years ago I was a semi-pro magician (yes, really) and magicians have a long history of doing the cruise ships.

One was on the Titanic. He had, by all accounts, a fantastic act.

At the start, he would wave a white handkerchief in the air and produce a parrot. The parrot sat on a perch all through the show. At the end of the show, the magician covered the parrot with the same handkerchief, threw the lot into the air and the handkerchief fluttered gracefully to the floor while the parrot had disappeared.

The audience went wild with applause, until one day, the parrot started to get a bit bored. Well he had seen all the tricks, heard all the jokes, he wanted to liven things up a bit.

So the magician did a fantastic trick, but the parrot said, "It's up his sleeve, it's up his sleeve, squawk, it's up his sleeve".

The magician was annoyed, but he carried on. Then the parrot said, "It's round his back, it's round his back, squawk, it's round his back!"

But the magician was a trooper, so, despite being humiliated by his parrot , he carried on, until his penultimate illusion, whereupon his parrot said, "There's a trapdoor int he floor, there's a trapdoor in the floor, squawk, there's a trapdoor in the floor!"

In anger and frustration the magician hit the parrot just as the Titanic sank, and when the parrot came to, there was nothing left, except a piece of driftwood, with the magician sitting at one end and the parrot at the other.

For three days they stared at each other in silence. Until the parrot eventually said, "OK, I give up, what have you done with the ship?"

Ronnie Corbett in the Chair, c.1974. I thank you.

 

[Steve Maskery]

And yes, before you ask, that really was part of my cabaret act.
It was funny at the time.

 

[Richard863]

Hi Steve
I have been cold smoking the trout I catch for many years now, although cold smoking does not cook the flavours of the thinly sliced fish on toast beat any thing you can get in the shops. I usually cold smoke with Beech sawdust anything up to 10 trout fillets then vacuum pack the rest. I have dug out a simple procedure. I will send it to your email, as I'm not sure how to use the transfer method.

Richard

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Tea leaves and seaweed were two other suggested materials to use.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Food isn't the only thing smoked - have a look at Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier. They use (or at least used to use) whole beech trees to do the smoking. I discovered this wonderful elixir at sixteen on a school trip.

 

[Steve Maskery]

My first thought was, "How do they smoke the beer? Surely it would put the candle out?".
D'oh!

 

[Steve Maskery]

I've booked myself on a one-day Curing and Smoking course at Vale House Kitchen, near Bath, in February.
3 places left if anyone else is interested.