Boiling meat a bit before smoking?

Do you have a smokehouse at home? Are you one of those people who love meat smoking and making other smoked delicacies? Well, smoked belly, ribs or ham are great and the taste is unforgettable. But anyway, if done correctly, any smoked meat tastes great. But as with any recipe, you need to observe important steps. But which are the most important steps? We shall take a look at the most important principles in this article.

The smokehouse must be properly heated

If you put meat in a cold smokehouse you will literally destroy the meat. To heat up the smokehouse properly use ordinary soft wood, as soft wood burns quickly. Later however, you need to gradually switch to hard wood and do the actual smoking. If you fail to heat up the smokehouse properly, you will have a problem because soot and any dirt flying around will have tendency stick to the meat and the surface of the meat will turn black rather than golden in the end. Temperature in the smokehouse should be around 70 to 80 degrees Celsius.

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Which wood should you choose?

Pommes trees such as plums or cherries are best but you can also use other hardwoods such as a well-dried beech, oak or ash wood. Are you concerned about the bark? Well, the vast majority of people is against using bark in a smokehouse. So, we go along with that and so should you. After all, removing bark from wood pieces is not that difficult.

Meat pieces should be roughly the same size

This may sound like a trivial issue but it is very important. Make sure that meet pieces are approximately of the same size to make sure that the meat is smoked evenly and you will not need to leave bigger pieces in the smokehouse for long time.

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Boil meat little before smoking

Yes, before you put meat in the smokehouse, you can put individual pieces in hot water for about 20 minutes. The water temperature should be around 80 degrees Celsius. The meat will shrink and it will not suffer a thermal shock and individual pieces will not lose so much weight during smoking. Meat will retain more juice and that is what you want.

Preview photo: Radek Štěpán