Not a Challenge, I'm just interested in learning...l have toured a few Slaughter House/Butcher operations that Cure and Smoke meats and sausage, studied the Southern Smoking Technique for Country Bacon and Hams and the recent Benton's Bacon Video I posted all run Smoke Continously for 24 hours to 7 days.
Is your info anecdotal, as so many techniques are or do you have studies on smoke penetration you can recommend I read. Thanks...JJ
I am no expert by any means and my chemistry knowledge is limited to very basic but I been "trailing" my grandpa old school smoking technique since my childhod and continued to learn through my adulthood... In short, this is what I learned about duration and smoke density...
after initial curing meat surface becomes porous becouse of salt is more concentrated on surface and creates more air pockets. .. it's like a web of microscopic air pockets created by salt osmosis... In the begining, this air web are more dense close to surface and less in meat interior due to time needed for salt to penetrate, withdraw water and create air pockets... as time goes by, meat is drying, shrinks, meat becomes more dense and microscopic air pockets slowly disappear....now back to smoke time and smoke density...
at the beginning of smoking, surface air pockets are filled with smoke, smoke is loaded with chemicals compounds which starts to deposit inside microscopic air pockets... once these air pockets are filled with after burn chemical compounds further smoking is waste of time becouse chemicals compounds deposited inside close to surface air pockets need time to penetrate and populate next layer of meat air pockets. . it's like time delay chain reaction... that's why is smoking time on/time off very important to allow time delay chain reaction to happen....once smoking is done, over drying period of time, chemical compounds will work its way deeper and populate rest of the interior air pocket made by salt reverse osmosis and drying process...
White, thick dense smoke means uncompleted burn and it is loaded with carbon, carbon deposits itself in air pockets and over period of time work its way deeper resulting in harsh, bitter meat taste...
To avoid confusion, I am talking about smoking at very low temperatures in DIY situation. . I could only suspect that large volume smoked meat producers go different route to minimize cost and time knowing that volume of product in store will sell fast and majority of people are happy to occasionally have a slice of tasty meat with smoke after taste. . .
Again, I am no expert by any means, just sharing my limited knowledge....
I hope all this make sense written in my limited english as a second language...
