The longest smoke!?

[manxman]

Hi,

We have a commercial smoke house near where I live which is a working museum, the guy that runs it is 80 years old and gets into work by 5 am on the days when they are smoking. Predominantly they produce kippers. (oak cold smoked herring)

The place itself has changed very little in the last 150+ years and the smoking methods are identical. The only "progress" is an automated gutting and filleting machine which replaced the Scottish "Herring Girls" that travelled the U.K following the herring fishing around the coastline in the early part of the last century. However, this machine itself became obsolette in the 1960's but is still in working order and used on a weekly basis.

It is like walking back in time, a marvellous way to spend an hour or two on a wet day.

I noticed they were cold smokin back bacon when I popped in, slabs around 2.5 - 3 foot long, 9 inches to a foot wide and 4 - 6 inches deep. It has deep cuts in the meat at 6 inch intervals. I immediately saw the possibility of cutting a similar one into thirds or quarters to do in my B.S! Their bacon is marvellous but I fancied trying maple or hickory rather than oak.

Hence I enquired of the times they used to smoke these slabs of meat, imagine my surprise when the smoker said 168 hours!! (7 days!!) I double checked this and then did some quick mental arithmatic!

168 hours X 3 pucks per hour = 504 (+2!) pucks required.

Pucks in the UK cost around £36 ($66) per 120 pack.

4.2 packs required at a cost of £150! ($280)

Even allowing for cutting the meat into smaller portions,this idea has been shelved for the foreseeable future, unless I win the lottery! This old recipe from the 1800's demonstrates perhaps how the prime reason for smoking in by gone days was as a preservative.





Manxman.

[BigSmoker]

I'm sure you could shorten the smoke/cook time considerbly.  Use a cure to preserve the bacon instead of the slooooooooow smoking.  Maybe it won't be quite as good as the old man's smoke house but I assure you it will be better than anything you could by in a U.S. super market.  I also like the maple idea[:D].

Jeff
//www.bbqshopping.com

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Some say BBQ is in your blood, if thats true my blood must be BBQ sauce.