Category Archives: Curing

First smoke! Testing the DIY cold smoker

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Time: 5 minutes – Patience: 10 hours – Difficulty: Trivial – Knackynes: Low

So I built a cold smoker, and then it was time to try it!

The items in my first smoke run were the cured salmon fillet, a piece of home-cured bacon, three garlic bulbs and about a dozen home-grown chillies.  These were loaded into the smoker on the racks – I considered hanging the bacon piece from a  hook but decided against this time.  The loaded smoker looks really empty so the first lesson is to have more items ready for smoking and do them all at once.

Smoker, loadedThe ProQ smoke generator lit very straightforwardly and behaved immaculately, smouldering gently without any noticeable heat output for almost exactly the advertised ten hours.  I used oak sawdust in the smoke generator for the first attempt, and the 100g pack I had was a little bit more than I needed.

ProQ cold smoke generator, litThe smoker itself leaked like a sieve from the junction between the roof and box, and also from the side of the magnetically-attached door panel.  I suspect this meant the smoke density inside the box was rather less than it might have been.  Before the next run, I plan to plug as many of these leaks as I can using silicone mastic and some batons, and we’ll see if I get a more concentrated smoke as a result.  I could conceivably run a second smoke generator, but this would increase my costs, so I’d rather not!

Overall, the salmon was a great success.  It was firm, glistened slightly with oil on the surface, and cooked wonderfully into the creamy home-smoked salmon pasta I made for dinner on Monday.  You can see photos and more discussion with the recipe.

The garlic and chillies didn’t appreciably change in appearance during smoking – at odds with the smoked garlic I’ve seen before which was dark yellow to brown in colour.  I have seen recommendations for smoking times for garlic up to 36 hours, though, so 10 may not be enough to achieve this, especially in a leaky-smoker.  They smell wonderfully of oak smoke though and the flavour of the garlic is a treat – nice fresh flavour with a subtle but distinct note of oak smoke, not too obtrusive and lovely for general cooking.  I might re-smoke one of the bulbs next time I run the smoker, if I’ve not eaten it all by then.

Bacon, salmon, garlic and chillies after smokingThe bacon has a bit of smoke staining on the rind and has darkened on the meat side.  I think you might get more discolouration on the rind with the bacon hanging rather than sat rind-up on a rack.  Apart from that, it looks and smells as I would expect from good smoked streaky bacon.  I haven’t tasted it yet – but plan to have some for my lunch!

Read more DIY Cold Smoker & Home-Curing posts >>

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Creamy home-smoked salmon pasta

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Time: 10 minutes – Patience: 10 minutes – Difficulty: Simple – Knackyness: Low

Yesterday, I had a first experiment at curing and smoking salmon at home.  Tonight, I made a creamy smoked salmon pasta with the cold smoked fillet I’d produced.

Smoked salmon pasta - some ingredientsIngredients –

  • One tail fillet of home-smoked salmon, around 100g
  • Two home-reared pullet’s eggs
  • One clove of home-smoked garlic, crushed
  • A small handful of grated parmesan or pecorino
  • A glug of double cream
  • Pasta of your choice, sufficient for two portions

Method –

  • In a dry frying pan, start to cook your whole smoked salmon fillet
  • In a large saucepan, bring some salted water to the boil
  • Add the pasta to the boiling water, along with a pinch of salt and a glug of olive oil
  • Once the salmon fillet is cooked, break it up into flakes in the pan, then add the crushed garlic clove and continue to fry gently for a couple more minutes
  • Meanwhile, in a bowl or jug, beat the eggs with a fork, add the glug of double cream and 2/3rds of the grated parmesan, along with a generous pinch of cracked black pepper
  • Once the pasta is cooked, drain and return to the saucepan.
  • Add the liquid ingredients to the frying pan with the salmon and garlic, and almost immediately transfer all of these into the drained pasta
  • Mix swiftly, the heat from the pasta will cook the egg, and the texture should end up thick and glossy.  But don’t worry if it looks a bit like scrambled egg with salmon in it, it will still taste marvellous
  • Serve into two bowls, topped with the rest of the grated parmesan

Simple, tasty, and all the key ingredients home-produced. And done in the ten minutes it takes to cook the pasta. What could be better?

Verdict on the smoked salmon? Undoubted success. Cooked in this dish it is distinctively and recognisably smoked salmon, has a good firm texture and slightly salty flavour and lovely smokey aroma.  Result!

I have an apology to make, however – it was a long day at work, and I was hungry… so I didn’t stop to take photos of the cooked dish, I just ate it!

A little bit fishy – first attempt at smoked salmon

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Time: 15 minutes – Patience: 24 hours – Difficulty: Easy – Knackyness: Low

As the smoker build was progressing well, my mind of course turned to what to put in for the first experimental firing along with the piece of bacon I’ve been curing this week.

I’ve never smoked or even cured fish before but there were a couple of tail-piece salmon fillets in the Co-op this afternoon.  Opinions seem to vary incredibly widely on how long one should cure the salmon for (and indeed whether table salt or curing salt are required), whether to dry cure or brine, and then how long a smoke is required (with opinions ranging from 6 to 36 hours!).  Since I planned to run the smoker the next morning, and the fillet is small and thin (and has also been robbed of it’s skin – something I didn’t notice when I bought it) I went for the lowest of all the estimations, and the simplest of approaches.

I used:

  • A 125g farmed Atlantic salmon tail fillet (skinless – not ideal)
  • Very simple dry cure made from 30g of sea salt and 15g of golden caster sugar

Salmon, with cure appliedWeighed down with tinRub the cure generously into both sides of the fish with some extra under the fillet.  Then weigh the fillet down with a plate and a can of tomatoes to encourage the water to come out of it.  Leave the fillet like this in the fridge for six hours.

Salmon fillet after curingAfter six hours the fillet should be flatter, firmer, darker in colour and lighter in weight.  The photograph is the same fillet as above.  After six hours of curing there was lots of salt still left in the bowl, along with quite a bit of pickle (the liquid which has oozed out of the fish).  The fillet, rinsed and dried weighed 111g, a 14g weight loss in water in six hours.

Now put the fish, uncovered, on a rack in the fridge overnight.  In the morning it will have formed a shiny pellicle, and lost a bit more weight (mine was 109g by this time).  Time now to load my home-built cold smoker for it’s maiden voyage…

Salmon after smoking - skinned sideSalmon fillet after smokingAfter ten hours of cold oak smoke, the fillet is 106g (a 19g total weight loss which is about 16% – not far off the 17-18% I’ve seen recommended).  It has a glossy, slightly oily surface, a firm texture, and smells more of smoke than it does of fish.    I would describe it as ‘lightly smoked’, for reasons I’ll discuss further in the write-up of the first (rather experimental!) burn in the smoker.  Because I don’t know enough about the storage conditions of the fillet before I bought it, I plan to cook with it instead of eating it raw – probably tomorrow night. Expect a post-sampling update!

Juniper and Bay cure for cooking bacon

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This was my first experiment with adding aromatics to a bacon cure.  I’d picked up a pack of ‘thick streaky pork slices’ from the supermarket bargain-meats section – a pack of five pork belly slices about as thick as they were deep, and seven or eight inches long.  For the curing technique, see Bringing Home The Bacon.

I probably wouldn’t recommend using this as a cure for bacon you intend to slice and have for breakfast (though, if you like it, why not?), but it produces really excellent bacon for cutting into cubes and using in cooking.  My first batch was incorporated variously into a celeriac and sausage casserole, a lovely rich bolognese sauce, cauliflower cheese, and sliced and fried to crispy as a burger garnish.

To make 100g of cure (enough to cure about a kilo of belly pork), you will need:Juniper and Bay cure, and ingredients

  • 67g of Supracure (see Bringing Home the Bacon for more information on curing salt)
  • 33g of molasses sugar
  • 8 – 10 juniper berries
  • 1 bay leaf

Put the bay leaf and juniper berries in a spice grinder or pestle and mortar and grind to a medium texture. Add the sugar and Supracure to the grinder and mix well.  Store in an airtight container.  Thanks to the juniper berries, the cure will smell faintly of gin.  This is no bad thing in my opinion!

This is quite a dark coloured cure with a distinctive aroma – it adds a lovely and unusual flavour to dishes when used in cooking.  It seemed to go down well with the people to whom I experimentally fed it, anyway!

Bringing Home the Bacon

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Time: 15 minutes — Patience: 1 week — Difficulty: Easy — Knackyness: Low

“Why would I want to make bacon?” you might well ask yourself. Well, cast your mind back to the last bacon rashers you put in a pan. Did they ooze lots of grotty white watery liquid and end up half the size they started, a bit rubbery and rather grey? Probably a bit uninspiring-tasting, too. [A couple of my more ‘foodie’ friends have pointed out that their bacon doesn’t do this, because they buy good bacon from a butchers, farmer’s market, etc – all I can say is ‘lucky you’, but also I bet if you make your own, it will be just as good, and half the price!]

Making bacon is really easy. It will take a few minutes a day for about a week, and cost very little (certainly less than buying really good dry-cured bacon). The bacon you will make will sizzle and crisp with that gorgeous sweet smell of real bacon, and will render only bacon fat into the pan. The rind, if you decide to leave it on, will be crisp and crunchy. With experimentation, you will be able to control the saltiness, sweetness, smokiness, and any other seasoning flavours you might desire. That, in a nutshell, is why you should make your own bacon.

So, assuming you’re convinced, what do you need?

First, some curing salt. The easiest way is to get premixed salt-and-saltpetre. I’ve used ‘Supracure’, which is available in the UK in 2kg packs from Weschenfelder or Hot Smoked, both of whom I’ve bought supplies from in the past. 2kg will cost you about £6 – 7 plus shipping. [Aside – I know nitrites are associated with potential health concerns – you can make bacon with just salt (rock salt is best) without the saltpetre, it will taste fine, but will look grey rather than pink in colour, and theoretically at least will provide less protection against bacterial contamination and spoilage.]

Second, some meat. The easiest cut to start with is a piece of pork belly. Try to find a nice fresh piece about 500g in weight. Very cheap pork belly can be bought from supermarkets, usually in the ‘bargain cuts’ section for about £2 – 3. Better still, get a nice piece of outdoor reared belly pork from a good butchers, which round here will set you back £4 – 5 for around half a kilo. The fat should be scored (it probably will be anyway).

Thirdly assemble the rest of your equipment, which you probably already have. You want some soft dark brown sugar (or indeed any sugar, but the less refined it is, the better the resulting flavour). Dig out your kitchen scales. You need to find a non-metallic container (oven dish, or tupperware) large enough to comfortably hold the piece of belly pork with plenty of room around for air circulation. You will also require some cling film and some greaseproof paper / baking parchment. Last of this difficult to procure list, a small sealable tupperware box or ziplock bag.

All set? Right, let’s get going.

Weigh out 40g of the supracure and 10g of the sugar into your sealable box or ziplock bag (we’re aiming for about 10% of the weight of the piece of meat in total cure, so if your piece of belly is bigger or smaller, adjust your quantities accordingly). Mix well. Also carefully re-seal your bag of supracure, as you don’t want moisture to get in.

Dry the piece of belly pork with kitchen paper and put into the non-metallic dish. Rub all the surfaces generously with the cure mix, we’re looking for a 5 day cure so you’re aiming to use about 20% of the total mixture, however I’ve found I use a bit more on the first day and less later on. You want a bit more cure on the meat surfaces and less on the fat. Cover loosely with cling film and put it in the fridge.

That’s it for today. Every day for the next four days, take it out of the fridge, pour away the liquid which will be appearing in the dish, re-salt and leave the opposite side up to the day before. Re-cover and return to the fridge. Over this period, the piece of belly will appear to shrink, the meat will darken in colour, the fat will remain white, and the texture will become firmer.

On the sixth day, take your bacon (for bacon it now is) out of the dish, rinse carefully under running water, pat dry with kitchen paper, wrap loosely in the baking parchment and return to the fridge on an open shelf for a couple of days. Try to make sure the air can circulate freely around the bacon, as this will help it continue to dry out. You will notice a slightly tacky shiny surface develop on the bacon, this is normal and desirable. Over the 48 hours, the cure will continue to distribute more evenly within the piece of bacon. If you were going to smoke the bacon, now would be the time to do it.

Now enjoy! Slice as thinly as possible (I recommend keeping the the ‘edge’ slice for cutting into lardons and cooking with, as it can be uneven in shape and will be saltier than the rest of the piece) with a very sharp knife, put a couple of slices into a hot frying pan, and wait for the sizzle! You can cut the rind off before or after cooking, but I wouldn’t! The fact the fat was scored on the piece will stop the rind deforming the bacon as it cooks.

The bacon will keep better if you slice it as you need it, you should be able to keep the block of bacon in the fridge for a good 2 – 3 weeks, though I doubt it will take that long to eat it! If you need to store it longer, you can freeze it, either the whole block, or perhaps slice it all, interlace the slices with paper or film, and then you can defrost a slice at a time as you need it.

The whole project takes about five minutes on day 1, 30 seconds each on days 2 – 5 and then perhaps two minutes on day 6.