Culinary Delight: Smoking in Your Own Garden

"Many people love to embark on culinary experiments. For many garden and home owners, this increasingly includes the desire to try smoking in their own garden.

Because sausages, ham, fish, and the like, which tantalize the senses with a delightful smoky-spicy flavor, have been popular since ancient times, and not just because everything lasts longer. While the improved shelf life of food through the cold smoking process was often the primary motive in the past, today, in times of modern refrigerators and freezers, it is practically only the taste that makes us reach for a smoking barrel, smoker oven, or even the American smoker grill."

The principle behind smoking is fundamentally always the same. No matter what you want to smoke, the food is generally first cured and then exposed to smoke from all sides for a longer period. This smoke is created by incomplete combustion, and since it significantly influences the taste of the smoked food, the discerning gourmet should leave nothing to chance here.

Particularly experienced and discerning smoking enthusiasts create their own blends of specific types of wood, such as beech, and herbs like juniper, rosemary, etc., which then develop the aromatic smoke in the actual smoking chamber. Depending on the operating principle, this smoking chamber usually has a combustion chamber built underneath, containing the heating material. This can be wood or charcoal. Some modern devices also operate on gas. From this chamber, the heat now rises and heats the wood-herb mixture, which then produces the smoke.

"During smoking, liquid is continuously extracted from the food being smoked, and a cooking process is created. In addition, the surface of the smoked food receives a coating of soot and resin from the smoking wood. This layer acts as an antibacterial protective layer and prevents premature spoilage of the food.

When cold smoking, temperatures usually do not exceed 30°C. However, such a cold smoking process takes a comparatively long time, up to 20 days. The already good shelf life of the cooked food is improved by salting or curing it before smoking begins. Here too, the taste can be individualized with herb mixtures of juniper berries, pepper, cloves, bay leaves, mustard seeds, and much more."

"When hot smoking, the food to be smoked is exposed to smoke that is between 80 and 90°C hot for 1-2 hours, depending on the type.

A general rule of thumb applies: The fattier the food being smoked, the tastier the result."