Indoor smoking

[Anonymous Modernist 749]

I just ordered a Cameron stove-top smoker (I live in an apartment, so outdoor options are prohibited) and was wondering if anybody had tips for the best ways to get smoke absorption with the limits of this setup. I'd like to try the pulled pork recipe in the book finished sous vide, but the 7-hour hot smoke is obviously not repeatable indoors. My current thoughts are:

1. Cut the food into small pieces to maximize surface area. However, it seems the smaller they get, the faster they'll dry out which will limit smoke absorption.

2. Smoke the food multiple times. I remember reading that once the food reaches a certain temperature, smoke absorption stops. Is this true? Is this actually because of the temperature of the food or is it the wet/dry issue discussed in the book? If temperature is an issue, would smoking, cooling, then resmoking work?

3. Use a heavier smoke like oak or mesquite. Would these overpower the pork or would they effectively counteract the limitations of an indoor setup?

If anybody has any other thoughts on indoor smoking, I'd be happy to hear them (foods that work best, wood types, temperature/humidity control, etc). I'm looking forward to trying the smoked potatoes, which specifically mention a stove-top smoker.

[Anonymous Modernist 218]

I have a Cameron smoker, and have used it mainly for smoked trout. A tablespoon or so of alder sawdust, a brined butterflied trout, 30 minutes on the stove. Fantastic. It really got me hooked on the use of smoke as a flavor. So much so that I went out and got a big green egg smoker/BBQ to do longer/cooler smokes!

I think the sweet spot for the Camerons is with smaller/thinner items that you want to hot smoke in 30 minutes or less. The sawdust is typically gone by then, so its hard to do a long smoke or a low-temp smoke. Your potato idea sounds great (if small or cut thin). I bet garlic might work in the Camron; this only took about 30 min in the BGE and was great in an aioli.

[Chris Young]

A stovetop smoker is a wonderful way for adding a light smoked flavor to food, but it will be a challenge to smoke large, thick foods for the long periods of time needed to fully develop an attractive smoked pellicle and deep smokey flavor. Here are my thoughts on how to produce flavorful pulled pork with your setup:

(1) Your thought about maximizing the surface area to volume ratio is exactly right: After cooking the pork sous vide, shred the meat prior to smoking it in your Cameron smoker.

(2) Use a relatively small amount of dry sawdust--do not wet the sawdust, it just makes the smoke very acrid tasting--and consider smoking multiple times. The reason is that the smoldering saw dust will increase the temperature and risks overcooking too much of the pork that you've carefully cooked at a low temperature.

(3) Saying cooked food doesn't absorb smoke is a myth. That food above a certain temperature doesn't absorb smoke is also false. This is covered in the book at length in the Smoking section of Chapter 7 (pages 132-149 in volume 2).

The secret to getting smoke to stick to food is to ensure the food is neither too wet nor too dry. If the surface is dripping wet, then the smoke sticks to this surface moisture and will drip off the food or evaporate with the juices before permeating the food. On the other hand, if your meat is overly dry, the smoke has difficulty diffusing into the meat efficiently. Also, too little moisture prevents molecules in the smoke from reacting with proteins and sugars in the meat, which is essential for creating a rich smoked flavor and attractive appearance.

So when you're smoking your pork, you want the surface of the meet to be warm and slightly tacky feeling. This requires a bit of drying, so keep your stovetop smoker slightly cracked to allow some moisture to escape while you're doing the smoking.

Hope this helps,

Chris

[Anonymous Modernist 749]

Thanks Chris. I put the pork in the water bath this morning, so it'll be ready this weekend. I'll report back on how it goes.

[Anonymous Modernist 749]

Well, Hurricane Irene took my first attempt (I had to throw out the shoulder after an extended power outage), so I didn't get around to trying again until this past weekend. I wasn't as careful as I should have been with the smoking (the meat got hotter than I would have liked it), but that didn't hurt the end product too much. The pork was still nice and tender and had a good amount of smoke absorption. I smoked it once for about 45 minutes. In the future, I'll probably smoke it twice for shorter periods of time (and maybe put a thermometer in there so I can stop it when the temperature gets too high). Overall though, I was very satisfied with the final result.

[chriswrightcycles]

Hey all, I'm looking for some guidance.

 

I am interested in smoking meats but unfortunately have no outdoor space to build/install a smoker. I am trying to figure out how to smoke things in my apartment. I live in an old factory with a bunch of windows and am not the least bit concerned about ventilation. Should I be...?

 

I recently acquired some equipment for cooking sous vide and am wondering if I can use low and slow sous vide cooking beside stovetop smoking to obtain an acceptable alternative to traditional smoking outdoors..?

 

Here are some questions I would love to have answered...

 

When building a stovetop smoker, what are some aspects of the design that are of utmost importance? Precise temp control? Humidity control? Should the smoker be air tight or is oxygen necessary to keep the chips smouldering?

 

Let's say I wanted to smoke a pork shoulder, could I cook that sous vide in a water bath to the desired doneness and then move it to my stovetop smoker to impart a smoke flavor? Would the outcome be better if I cooked them from start to finish in the stovetop smoker?

 

I appreciate the cumulative wisdom of this forum and thank you in advance for your comments.

 

-Chris

 

[Chris Hennes]

You've got a lot of questions here, let me try to address some of them:
 

I recently acquired some equipment for cooking sous vide and am wondering if I can use low and slow sous vide cooking beside stovetop smoking to obtain an acceptable alternative to traditional smoking outdoors..?

"Alternative," yes. The long cooking times in sous vide changes the flavor of smoked meats. Not in a bad way, in my opinion, but it doesn't taste like something freshly smoked. I find the smoke flavor becomes softer, for lack of a better term, lacking the sharp initial smoke flavor you get from something that has been smoked traditionally.
 

When building a stovetop smoker, what are some aspects of the design that are of utmost importance? Precise temp control? Humidity control? Should the smoker be air tight or is oxygen necessary to keep the chips smouldering?

Modernist Cuisine argues for humidity and temperature control, but I've never gone that far so can't really comment. You certainly will need the smoker to have access to oxygen, so making it airtight is not an option.
 

Let's say I wanted to smoke a pork shoulder, could I cook that sous vide in a water bath to the desired doneness and then move it to my stovetop smoker to impart a smoke flavor? Would the outcome be better if I cooked them from start to finish in the stovetop smoker?

The usual SV strategy is to smoke first and sous vide second: it's the only way I've tried it so can't say how well the reverse works. Either way the result will be different from traditional preparations. "Better" is too subjective, I think. Some people dislike the smoke-then-SV flavor: I like it.

[Martin Fisher]

You may want to look into the Cameron stove-top smokers...they're essentially sealed-up during smoking.

 

 

http://www.cameronsproducts.com/smokers

[Steve Irby]

You can smoke after sous vide quite successfully. The key is to have the exterior of the meat dry so the smoke can penetrate. My procedure is to cook the meat to desired temp, rapid chill in an ice bath, blot the meat of all moisture and then air dry for a half hour or so using a fan. If the ambient temp is pretty warm I leave the meat uncovered in the refrigerator to dry out. In order to prevent overcooking the food should go onto the grill cool to cold. Using a heavy smoke and instant read thermometer smoke the meat until you are just below the target temp.

I finish my food on a weber grill but I'm sure an indoor rig would be easy enough to make. I was watching DDD the other night and the cook had a one gallon food can with wood chips in it with a small kettle grill balanced on top. The kettle can be purchased for around $30 and would make a great stove top smoker.

Regarding temp and humidity you goal is to produce the maximum amount of smoke with the least amount of heat. You are going to definitely need to provide good cross ventilation unless you like the cave smell a lot.

I've attached a few photo's of last weekends batch. The smoke flavor was stronger after a few days of being resealed a the flavor equilibrated through the meats. The first two photos are air dried after the bath and the second two are coming off the grill.

[FeChef]

I have had really good results smoking partially frozen dry aged (pellicle) chuck roasts for 4+ hours and bringing internal temp to 150F. Then slathering with a thick bbq sauce and vacuum sealing it, then SV for 24-28 hours at 158F. The partially frozen state (pellicle formed skin) allows the bark to get really thick and the thick bbq sauce absorbs any juice that expelled from the meat during the long cooking process. The texture ends up being what i describe as "chop shred" every bite is an extremely moist burnt end.

[paulraphael]

The recommended method in Modernist Cuisine is to SV first, then cook briefly in a warm oven to dry the surface, and then smoke. This is based on a traditional German method that primes the meat to efficiently absorb smoke. Worth a try, considering Myhrvold's BBQ gold medals.

Edited to add: what Steve said. Looks like he's put it to good use ...

Edited April 20, 2014 by paulraphael (log)

[dcarch]

I have converted a working 4.5 cubic foot refrigerator into a hot/cold indoor smoker.

 

Attached to it is a variable volume motor driven cold pellet smoke generator which can operate with not much attention. It uses very little pellets.

 

The temperature is PID controlled. 

 

I can cold smoke cheese, salmon, hot smoke other meats, any season, any weather indoors.

 

I will try to post pictures when I am done with a very projects I am working on now.

 

dcarch