It's been a while since we last cold smoked anything. We went through a cold smoke phase a couple of years ago, it was surprisingly easy to do. We'd got a range of smoking dusts, and it was interesting to try the same sort of food smoked with different dusts.
We liked things with a hint of smoke, rather than really smoked. Smoking stuff ourselves enabled us to control just how smoky things were.
Hot smoking, which cooks the food as well as smoking it, has never really appealed to either of us, so our inexpensive and reliable ProQ Eco has been ideal.
After some headscratching, we retrieved theProQ Eco smoker box from Myshed. I remembered that it retained the smoky smell, so we knew it wouldn't be in the loft with the smoke generator and sawdust. Instead of trying to remember where I put it, I imagined that it was in front of me and needed putting away; where was the most sensible place? I find that technique qorks well for most things..
Anyway, I digress.
We sniffed the open packets of smoking sawdust (apple, oak, beech) and decided that, unsurprisingly, they'd lost their aroma. We opened a new packet of apple, as Apple would go really well with the cider/apple cure.
And off we went.
DH went out to check on it after about ten minutes, and again after half an hour; it's just as well he did.
I've now placed an order for a Thuros smoker. This one also does hot smoking and I think we might try to hot smoke some sausages. It's too late to smoke the remaining bacon.It's a compact size, it's got a lot more adjustability, it can be used for both cold and hot smoking, and it's not horrendously expensive in the scheme of things - £159 vs about £30 for the cardboard Eco. And it's metal. We may well have decided to upgrade to this anyway, recent events just brought the purchase forward a bit.
We also had to replace the smoke generator, so I ended up buying the Deal from AngusAndOink. It was a bit cheaper anyway than buying the two items, plus it had some sawdyust, chips, and BBQ dust included. I'd never heard of Angus and Oink before: they hadn't come up when I was googling, I found them through their YouTube video of them using the Thuros.
I noticed that a lot of places were out of stock of the Thuros, so I messaged Angus and Oink to check if they had any in. Luckily for me they did, so one will be with me soon.
