Smoked Turkey

[Oldman]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by GrillinFool</i>
<br />is it safe to cold smoke something like chicken in Florida in the summer? it is 90+ outside, and that is at night. I would be worried I would create a salmonella monster.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I live in Florida and there is no way I would try this unless I figured out how to refrigerate my smoker.

Olds

[manxman]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">figured out how to refrigerate my smoker.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I always use the John Watkins/Grakka method to cold smoke food.

http://www.johnwatkins.co.uk/personalpages/coldsmoking.htm

Think I may well have posted this before but I use plastic ice packs which work well to "refridgerate" the BS.

We get hoards of them at work that are otherwise thrown away. Depending on size I may use a dozen or more of them and stack em at the bottom of the BS in a tray, they last longer than the equivalent volume of ice cubes and the shape of them means you can actually have the equivalent of a big block of ice sitting at the bottom of your BS!

They are non toxic and can be washed in soapy water afterwards and reused.

Although  where I live in the Britain we are only looking at temperatures no hotter than around 70-80F on a good day, only occasionally 80+, it does work well to keep the BS "refridgerated".

Got to strike a balance though, the colder the temperature the more bacterial growth is inhibited [:D] but also apparently the less food takes up the smoke!![:(] Whilst an upper limit for coldsmoking food is often given I have a book somewhere that also quotes a lower limit as well so you don't want the BS to get too cold.

I particularly find it useful when I am cold smoking cheese on a hot day, I smoke my cheese for around 5 hours so from a safety point of view I need to keep the temperature down as the John Watkins method will only keep the temperature to a few degrees above ambient, no cooler.


Manxman.

[Habanero Smoker]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by GrillinFool</i>
<br />is it safe to cold smoke something like chicken in Florida in the summer? it is 90+ outside, and that is at night. I would be worried I would create a salmonella monster.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I didn't know you lived in Florida, but there are ways; if you handle the food properly and move the chicken directly from the refrigerator to the smoker. Use a method that Manxman posted. Or you can cut down on the smoke time to 1 1/2 hours, when the food is cold (the source I've seen quoted the any temperature above 34 F) smoke penetration and adhesion is greater. Also smoke is an antimicrobial, so that also gives you a small cushion of safety; it creates an unfriendly environment and inhibits the growth of bacteria.

Edited:
I should have said cut the smoke time to 1 hour and 20 minutes.