Cold Smoking Ideas: Tried & True + New

[pikestabber]

CaughtABuzz suggested starting a Cold Smoking ideas thread, so why not? Throw out things you've tried and like, things that maybe didn't go as planned, times and techniques. Or just toss out things you want to try but haven't done yet. Whatever you want to get the brains on here buzzing. I can start.

Have cold smoked...

• Eggs for deviled eggs: have done this many times, they are always great
• Coarse Sea Salt: turns a nice light brown and adds a smoky element to your dishes
• Cabbage and w/hot pepper flakes: Diced and buttered, then smoked for two hours. One hour may have been enough as it got just a touch bitter, but still pretty good. Less smoke would've been stellar I think.
• Cheeses of all kinds: hard to beat smoked cheese. I go about 2 hours and let them "meld" for at least a week in the fridge.
• Salmon: well...sort of...cold smoked until it got the smoke I wanted, then brought the internal up with heat. Not a true cold smoke.

Things I am considering include mushrooms, popcorn, chili peppers, onions, bread for croutons (smoke, then dehydrate).

Edited February 11, 2016 by pikestabber

[ThunderLund78]

I've heard smoked nuts are pretty awesome - like almonds

[thirdeye]

I have a Big Chief, a Little Chief, an A-Maze-N sawdust tray and pellet tube.

Eggs:  I hard boil them and peel 'em, then cold smoke for 2 hours or so.  When making deviled smoked eggs I add the traditional seasonings, but add bacon crumbles as well.  The whites do change color to light brown, but the flavor is really good.

Cheese:  I use a mini-WSM tamale pot conversion smoker and the sawdust tray.  Smoke times  from 4 to 7 hours, and I sample along the way.  With this method, mellowing is not needed, but after 3 days of mellowing I can tell a slight improvement.  When it tastes right, I remove the cheese to a rack on the counter for a couple of hours, then refrigerate (covered) overnight, and then bag it.  If you wrap too soon, condensation can form and you will get little white spots on the cheese.  If you ever see a darkening, surface oils, or taste a bitterness.... it's likely your smoke is too heavy, or you need to open your vents. My cheese of choice is Tillimook brand, and I prefer the black label Chedder (yellow, not the white), and pepper jack.  Colby doesn't seem to take smoke as well.  I need to try smoking some of my hi-temp cheese I use for sausage and meatloaf.

Butter:  Same set-up as the cheese, but smoking times are 3 or 4 hours.  I sample thin slices on a piece of warmed flour tortilla and the tortilla is kind of neutral.  

Nuts:  I used to cold smoke them, but find I like them better hot smoked.

Smoked Ice:  On my list to try as I've had cubes (made from smoked water) in whiskey and it's pretty good.

Nova Lox:  I prefer starting with the sawdust tray and finishing with my Little Chief, I begin sampling after 2 hours.  Here is some of my Nova Lox next to hot smoked salmon.

 

 

[ThunderLund78]

5 minutes ago, thirdeye said:

Smoked Ice:  On my list to try as I've had cubes (made from smoked water) in whiskey and it's pretty good.

BLOODY MARYS, ANYONE????

I suppose water with a little liquid smoke would get you the same result... but what fun would that be?

 

 

[Coffee118]

Having a coffee shop I've been experimenting with roasting & smoking my beans to get the taste of a pot of coffee perked and kept hot over an open fire. I'm getting close but not to where I am happy with it. Just have to keep trying to get it to have a subtle taste of smoke but not too over powering or bitter

[CaughtABuzz]

42 minutes ago, ThunderLund78 said:

 

Yep weve done smoked bloody mary's and there awesome! I have done it 2 ways, one with smoked ice and the other we poured the bloody mix into a sheet pan for more surface space to take on smoke. Both turned out good but different, if everyone is on board we just smoke the mix

interesting you mentioned the liquid ice, never went that direction but i saw this article a couple days back....apparently it is not as good and definitely not as fun

http://amazingribs.com/recipes/drinks/smoked_ice.html

 

I'll add what ive done that hasnt been mentioned

Chocolate, Apple Pie(others would work as well), fries, potatoes for loaded mashed (know ones will ever compare now) Lemons for lemonade- great for margaritas, did saur kraut for elk sausage.....there will be more but cant think of them all

will be doing a bbq sauce this spring, cant wait to see what others get on here

[Boar]

guys guys guys. this one uve gota do, GRAVY. and a great way to do it is smome a roast for 4-5 hours even six. then finish it in the roaster, make gravey with the juices.. 

ive havent cold smomed any thing yet.

and will try pretymuch all suggested. but for the sake of smurf, i bet smoked horsradish would be great for thos HR lovers

 

[reinhard1]

I know Buzz is very creative and will try just about anything.  I would love to smoke some of the Reinhard Caught A Buzz BBQ sauce soon.  That would be awesome I think.  I have cold smoked salmon, trout, white bass, tullibee, cheese, and eggs.  The main thing I cold smoke is sausage [with cure].  I have never used liquid smoke, love the real thing.  good luck.

[blue_healer_guy]

So what exactly is cold smoked.  Im guessing a low temp?

[reinhard1]

Anywhere between 50 and 80 deg.  you don't really want to go above 80 in my opinion or you may compromise the texture of what you are smoking, like cheese for example.  The lower end of the temp will take you longer and toward the 80 deg. mark will take less time for the smoke to adhere.  Around 70'ish is the best if you can achieve it in my opinion.  good luck.

[pikestabber]

18 hours ago, thirdeye said:

Nova Lox:  I prefer starting with the sawdust tray and finishing with my Little Chief, I begin sampling after 2 hours.  Here is some of my Nova Lox next to hot smoked salmon.

I haven't tried Nova Lox yet, but last night was my second batch of salmon following your recipe verbatim, Thirdeye, and it's hands down the best salmon I've ever had. Such a perfect balance of sweet to smoke to salt. I did some about a week ago and wanted to try one more time before commenting. I know salmon lends itself well to smoking, but I wonder if that same technique would be good for other fish? If I know going in that a fish has less oil content, how might I adjust for that?

I feel I can hang with most folks when it comes to smoking just about anything, but my fish has always left something to be desired, and it just took a major step forward. Thanks for the great step-by-step recipe! (For those unfamiliar, go to Thirdeye's blog for the recipe: http://playingwithfireandsmoke.blogspot.com/1995/02/seafood-dry-cure-for-salmon-trout-or.html). Lots of other fun stuff on his page, as well.

Edited February 12, 2016 by pikestabber

[smurfy]

17 hours ago, Boar said:

guys guys guys. this one uve gota do, GRAVY. and a great way to do it is smome a roast for 4-5 hours even six. then finish it in the roaster, make gravey with the juices.. 

ive havent cold smomed any thing yet.

and will try pretymuch all suggested. but for the sake of smurf, i bet smoked horsradish would be great for thos HR lovers

 

tried smoking horseradish..............wont stay lit!!!!!!!!!!!

[thirdeye]

2 hours ago, pikestabber said:

I haven't tried Nova Lox yet, but last night was my second batch of salmon following your recipe verbatim, Thirdeye, and it's hands down the best salmon I've ever had. Such a perfect balance of sweet to smoke to salt. I did some about a week ago and wanted to try one more time before commenting. I know salmon lends itself well to smoking, but I wonder if that same technique would be good for other fish? If I know going in that a fish has less oil content, how might I adjust for that?

I feel I can hang with most folks when it comes to smoking just about anything, but my fish has always left something to be desired, and it just took a major step forward. Thanks for the great step-by-step recipe! (For those unfamiliar, go to Thirdeye's blog for the recipe: http://playingwithfireandsmoke.blogspot.com/1995/02/seafood-dry-cure-for-salmon-trout-or.html). Lots of other fun stuff on his page, as well.

Thanks for the kind words, over the years I've gotten a lot of positive feedback.  I've only cured trout, salmon and steelhead with this method, but fish for smoking should be oily and somewhat dense... maybe sturgeon, mackerel, catfish or tuna would be good choices.  I'm thinking fish like bass, walleye, or pike might dry out during the process.

[Boar]

i sgest trying sturgeon. ive sampled.some from a guy at work.and it was phnominal.

[ThunderLund78]

We go on a sturgeon trip every year and get a few in the slot.  I personally don't keep any - nothing against anyone who does, but I find it hard to kill and eat a beast whose as old as me and that has been sucking dead morsels of the bottom of a river for 40 years.  My buddies keep a few and i have tried what they smoke.  It's good but I'd take salmon or whitefish over the sturgeon any day.  Maybe they just don't do it as good as some do - because I've heard MANY say it's the best smoked fish they've had.

[CaughtABuzz]

3 hours ago, Boar said:

i sgest trying sturgeon. ive sampled.some from a guy at work.and it was phnominal.

Had this once at La Belle Vie....wow was it good, very different texture than the other fish I have tasted that were smoked and would definitely say it was the best smoked fish I have ever had.....also from one the nicest restaurants we have local to us so they knew what they were doing.

I am in the same boat as you ThunderLund, even though it was good it would be hard for me to keep a fish that old to try it....maybe if I had a group that did a LOW trip I would keep on for the group to split and try to smoke one, did watch a video the other day how to fillet one which was intersting