cold smoking pork chops

[Dalglish]

I'd like to have a go at this tomorrow morning. I've read a number of threads on here and learned some things and I've seen various methods on this. I understand there's more than one way to skin a cat. Here's what I'm planning and would like input if you can :-

Brine the chops overnight/8hrs
2 hour cold smoke
vac sealed and refrigerated for a day

When I cold smoked cheese the other day the temp in the smoker started at about 68F and peaked at 74F after a 2 hour smoke. I realise this is largely due to ambient temps but that should be the same.

I've read through other sources that 2 hours is the cut off for food to be in the 'danger zone', I'll be right at that limit so this is my main concern. I've seen people using dry ice and regular ice but to be honest I didn't like the sound of the smoke not being able to rise through the cabinet like it should.

I understand curing meat eliminates the concern of bacteria growth but can the same be said of brining? Would throwing the chops in the freezer for 30 minutes or so help with this and will it affect how the chops take on smoke flavour?

Also, I'd like to smoke some salt at the same time but I've read that most are smoking at higher temps, has anyone had success cold smoking salt?

Thanks in advance,

Matt.

[beefmann]

im sure others will chime in on this, however my  understanding is that brining is a type of curing and salt adds life ( extends the length before spoiling )  so i would go ahead and smoke. Also would not freeze the chops for this process as it  would not accept the smoke.

just my  2 cents

[muebe]

Put the chops on the lowest tray in the smoker cold and add a ice tray just above the meat(cold air is heavy) to keep things cool and you should be fine for cold smoking them. Just keep an eye out on the temps that they do not climb too high. I have heard that dry ice also works very well if you have a local place to buy it. Two hours should be ok but I would not go any longer than that.

Regular salt and curing salt are two different things. The curing salt is needed when smoking for long periods at low temps to keep botulism and other nasties from growing in the meat. It will also change the taste of the chops. Just keep adding ice to the smoker keeping things cool and you will not need to add any cure.

And yes you can smoke the salt at the same time. The smoker does not need to be hot for salt. You can put a thin layer of salt in coffee filters for smoking. Stir the salt every 10 minutes to make sure you get even smoke coverage. The salt will not look very dark when you get done but as it gets older it will darken more. I have some that is almost a year old and it keeps getting darker :)

[KyNola]

I cold smoked 6 pork chops earlier in the Spring and they turned out great.  Here's how I did them.  I set up the Bradley cold smoke adapter and placed two large ziplock bags of ice in the tower.  I preheated the puck burner and placed two hours of hickory Bradley pucks in the smoke generator.  The 6 chops went directly from the frig to the smoker tower.  The only heat source was the smoke generator attached to the cold smoke adapter.  After two hours of cold smoking the chops were still very very cool to the touch.  Temp in the tower never got above 70.  Essentially, that's room temp.  I brought them in and vac sealed them.  I then froze 4 of them.  The other 2 I grilled the next day.  One tip I have for you is the longer you can let them stay vac sealed the better the smoke will get.  I just grilled the last 2 a couple of weeks ago and they were awesome!

[Dalglish]

Thanks for the feedback, ambient temp is 60F so I don't expect it to rise more than 10F over two hours but I have ice on hand if needed.

[Dalglish]

Tray of ice went in, it reached 70F after the first hour, now sitting at 66F :)

[KyNola]

You got this!  Nice going.