Smoker (For Food,not Fags)

giveup | 12:13 Sun 23rd Dec 2012 | Food & Drink

5 Answers

My husband has a fancy for a smoker.I have seen them used on the TV,but know very little about them. What kinds there are,how they work and the best place to buy one.Has anyone got one,or would it join all the other gadgets in the cupboard under the stairs.

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naomi24

It depends how much you want to spend, but we have an offset smoker which looks like a big barbeque with a firebox on the side, so if you get something like that you wouldn’t be able to take it indoors and pack it away in a cupboard.

Also, smoking meat isn’t like cooking it on a barbeque – it takes hours.

If you get a book called ‘Low & Slow’ from Amazon, that will tell you everything you need to know, and give you lots of recipes and ideas.

More information here:

http://www.thesmokering.com/

giveup

Question Author

Thanks naomi24 will have a look.

sandyRoe

I think I read somewhere that smoked food should be a very rare treat. There are carcinogenic particles from the smoke on the food.

Clanad

Actually, smoked foods have been found to be quite healthy:

"As is nearly always the case, food fears are short on science and tall on misinformation. Many may remember that scare from the 1970s, claiming that nitrates could be carcinogenic, based on a report said to have found lymphatic cancer in 13 rats. Few consumers heard the rest of the story: that the preliminary MIT research behind that scare had had no peer review prior being acted on by the FDA and USDA, and was later discredited as faulty when an interagency working group of scientists from the FDA, USDA and NIH was convened to review the scientific data. The study was also sent to outside reviewers. As a 1983 risk assessment from the National Research Council noted, normal FDA review procedures hadn’t been followed during that scare, in what had seemed justifiable at the time to protect public health and in response to consumer group petitions; but “normal peer review would have revealed the fatal flaws in the MIT data.”

In 1981, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the scientific literature and found no link between nitrates or nitrites and human cancers, or evidence to even suggest that they’re carcinogenic. Since then, more than 50 studies and multiple international scientific bodies have investigated a possible link between nitrates and cancers and mortality in humans and found no association.

What may be more surprising to learn is that scientific evidence has been building for years that nitrates are actually good for us, that nitrite is produced by our own body in greater amounts than is eaten in food, and that it has a number of essential biological functions, including in healthy immune and cardiovascular systems. Nitrite is appearing so beneficial, it’s even being studied as potential treatments for health problems such as high blood pressure, heart attacks, sickle cell disease and circulatory problems." (Source: JunkScience.com - All the news that's fit to debunk)

There's some suspicion that charred meats (overcooked on the barbeque to a black outside) may have less than perfect health benefits.

We, here in the western U.S., have a smaller "Big Chief" electric fired smoker. We use it all the time, but especially in the fall and winter for big game (elk, especially) and fish. It's simple but as naomi has stated, takes quite an investment in time. A load of 4 or 5 roasts or maybe 7 or 8 lake trout (all weighing maybe 15 pounds) takes 6 to 8 hours.

One can use an outdoors barbeque, but only for adding a great smoke flavor. We use hickory chips, but others use apple or other fruit tree woods if they can find them. The barbeque won't smoke the meat to preservation status though...