"If you could make your own bacon, smoked salmon, and smoked cheese at home - stuff that normally costs a fortune at specialty shops - by spending just a few hours setting up a cold-smoking apparatus at home ( you can DIY this with a grill), why wouldn't you? With the genuine smoke flavor that stays for months, even without a fridge, whatever you make's going to taste superior to the store-bought stuff, too."
"Cold smoking occurs at very low temperatures (59 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit) - low enough to keep the meat raw, unlike hot smoking, where the heat cooks it. To keep dangerous bacteria like botulinum from growing, according to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, we have to cure the meat with salt first. Salt draws water out of meat, creating a dry, salty environment where bacteria can't survive. This is the step that will keep your cold-smoked meat safe for consumption."
"For wet curing, mix 1 cup of salt for every gallon of water, dump your meat in, and wait up to seven days in the fridge with the meat completely covered. Either approach works fine, just pick whichever fits your life better. After curing, you'll notice a pellicle has formed. It's just a thin, slightly sticky layer that develops on the meat's surface, where the smoke collects."
Cold smoking occurs at very low temperatures (59 to 77°F) that leave meat raw rather than cooked. To prevent growth of dangerous bacteria such as Clostridium botulinum, meat must be cured with salt before cold smoking. Dry curing involves rubbing salt on meat and refrigerating about one day per half pound; wet curing uses a brine of one cup salt per gallon of water and up to seven days refrigerated. Equilibrium curing applies 2% salt by weight, sealed in a bag. Curing draws water out of meat, inhibits bacteria, and forms a pellicle—a slightly sticky surface layer that attracts smoke.
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