We had some basic understanding of smoking meat based on what we seen back home… Everybody´s grandma used to have smoker at home, and the old people knew what type of wood, how much smoke it needs and how to do it. All this knowledge is pretty much lost. I wish I would have the possibility to have a meat smoker, but right now our living conditions does not permit this (apartment), I don´t think the neighbours would appreciate me cold smoking the meat on the balcony LOL.
I found this video by Adam Ragusea very entertaining and also informative. Until now I had only new that hot and cold smoking exists, but had no idea what is the use of any of them. Also knew that all meat should(as it was back in the days) sit in salt for up to a few days, and for extra safety, when I tried to preserve meat. When I did some experiments with meat preserves I did used nitrites in the minimum recommended amount, in the attempt to try to avoid the botulism bacteria. I knwo, some poeple are fully against it, but the jury is still out there, I think it´s better to add it then to get sick from botulism. (which can be deadly and goes undetected in food…). I really apreciate him taking the time and explaining smoking 🙂 becasue while from the outside it seems a very simple task, it turns out to be a very complicated process if you want to get it RIGHT.
What is something new to me is considering liquid smoke. I had no idea that liquid smoke also can help preserve the meat due to the components found in it. I thought it will only give the smoked meat flavour which is also nice, but this changes a bit things for me. I could experiment with liquid smoke a little bit while we still live in an apartment where smoking is not doable.
