Hot or cold smoked

I'm not quite sure how this post came about now. I know it was a conversation we were having at home, but I can't remember how it came up.

One thing's for sure, I have noticed in recent times a lot of products being labelled hot smoked as if this is the latest and greatest thing. How can hot and cold smoked be different thought I - being totally naive. After all you can't have smoke without fire, so therefore surely all smoked food is hot smoked. But yes there is a difference, and if you go to the SBS food site you will get explanations, 'how to's' and lots of recipes. But I will try to summarise, with the help of the SBS article.

"In cold smoking, food is placed in a chamber or box and smoke is pumped through the chamber for a period of around 12- 48 hours. The temperature of the chamber is kept between 20-25°C, and the fire producing the smoke is kept away from the food." Bron Maxabella - SBS

The crucial thing though seems to be to cure the food to be smoked first. That is you put it in brine and then hang to dry before smoking. The curing draws out moisture which enables the food to absorb the smoke better. Apparently you need to get the temperature just right, so I reckon this might not be a particularly easy thing to do.

And cold smoked foods are generally eaten raw - cold in fact. They are not generally cooked.

Hot smoking though is relatively easy for anyone to try - think Weber kind of barbecues.

"In hot smoking, food is placed alongside the fire that produces the smoke. Food is smoked and cooked simultaneously using this method. Depending on what’s being cooked, the temperature of the chamber is generally kept between 80 and 150°C; so much lower than other methods, hence the long cooking time." Bron Maxabella - SBS

The SBS site has lots of tempting sounding recipes for hot smoking from yoghurt to this very yummy looking Texas beef brisket. Which I assume is the dish that features a lot in the TV comedy/soap Young Sheldon.

The important thing with hot smoking seems to be the wood that you use as some imparts a bitter flavour. So don't go putting in just any old kind of wood. Here in Australia ironbark, black wattle and manuka are recommended, but otherwise fruit trees and things like hickory, maple and oak seem to be the thing. I think you can probably buy these in Bunnings. Maybe even in your local supermarket, though I couldn't find any on the Coles website.

It would seem fairly simple to hot smoke your own fish - there is a video on the SBS website for some trout with fennel, lemon and mushrooms as an example.

So hot smoked salmon which is flakier than cold smoked salmon - and I suspect sold in chunkier pieces - can be used in cooking. Mind you I have used cold smoked salmon lots of times in risottos and pastas.

Basically, cold smoking imparts a flavour to your food, but doesn’t fully cook it; hot smoking means you are cooking and flavouring at the same time." Bron Maxabella - SBS

And as a final little aside in America it seems the west coast favours hot smoked salmon and the east coast cold smoked. Don't think there's any divide here. Though I'm still not quite sure why 'hot smoked' is always presented as somehow special, when actually it seems to me to be the simpler and more basic way of smoking anyway.

"On the East Coast, smoked salmon traditions have been handed down from Nordic countries, whereas in the Pacific Northwest, people smoke salmon they caught themselves using their own barbecues, so the expectations are just completely different." Solex Catsmo

Oh and some say that smoke is anti-bacterial, which is a bit counter-intuitive really when you think that it's also supposed to be carcinogenic.