Read a title about cold smoking with maple and lighter woods

[archeryrob]

So I am interested in curing and hanging some deer roasts in my smokehouse and opening the by pass some to let most of the heat out. Keep fire smoldering for days to a week and then hang them in a basement laundry room.

Worse case its dog and chicken food. Thoughts?

This is what I am working with. By pass has a tight fitted damper. I may do a test burn and see if I can fill it with smoke and keep at 90 or below. Once hot in the fire box it pushed heat more.

 

[ifitsdeadsmokeit]

Are you curing the roasts first?

 

[Up_In_Smoke]

If the meat isn't cured, food safety dictates you stay below 40 Deg or above 140 Deg F.

EDIT: I'm sure you already knew this. Nevermind...

 

[zwiller]

That is exactly how it was done back in the day. I did it a few times. You might be surprised with it. I personally was not impressed with it. There is not much info about it but I found cold smoking results MUCH lighter compared to warm smoking. For some reason I expected the opposite.

 

[chopsaw]

I'm sure you already knew this. Nevermind...

He probably does , but still worth a mention .
I personally wouldn't use cure one and hang it in the smoke house for a week at a 90 degrees . If using cure 1 , depending on outside temps , I would cure 14 days . Smoke at low temp on day one , and leave it hang overnight , Smoke on day 2 to a safe internal temp , and leave hang overnight . I'd pull on day 3 , wrap in uncoated butcher paper and go into the fridge for 3 days up to 1 week .

 

[archeryrob]

I asked on the shooters forum and reminded myself I tried this once with geese and it was hard as a rock. It would not slice like Prosciutto and seems to be hard to hydrate, eat and taste plain. It had the taste and cutability of soap stone.

I know, I cure geese and deer to chipped beef, but wanted to try dry storage. I may try an whole roast for giggles again at the same time as pork and compare.