(02-17-2023, 04:18 AM)Bally002 Wrote: Yes it was very simple. Might try it but would like to know how long my Pork belly would keep after this process.
"A long time" is the most precise answer available. 2 + years. Now on the farm, it was rarely stored for over a year - by the next year, there was another batch of stuff to process and store, and in the intervening year, last falls products were being consumed. Canned goods were stockpiled longer. I've known of some of them being stored for 5 years before being eaten or traded off or given away.
Quote:Josh and his father seem to have a large set up. I don't think I could manage that. I could put up a small smoke house I guess. How long do you smoke the ham for and must you keep the smoker going 24/7?
Yeah, that was a big setup. Most smoke houses around here are only about the size of an outhouse. We have prefab outbuildings here that you can order and have delivered for a couple thousand dollars that are about the size of the smokehouse/ storage shed they had. One of those could be converted to a pretty big smoke house by just funneling in the smoke from a fire box using a tin stove pipe.
Yup, you keep the smoke going 24/7, but at a smolder, just to produce the smoke. Too much flame burns up the smoke instead of funneling it to the smoke house. Around here, it gets smoked for about a week after the salt cure. This video from over in Harlan County may help you visualize the process. This old guy says in the video he's eaten a 7 year old ham out of the smokehouse:
This video gives you some of the chemistry of smoking:
The way this fella shows to smoke is how the Indians did it around here when the Europeans first arrived. They just built a scaffold above the fire and let the smoke rise through the stuff the put on it. Low tech, and probably won't keep as long. John White, governor of the "Lost Roanoke Colony", was eye-witness to that process and made a water-color painting of it around 1585.
"Cold smoking" is how it's done for preservation. "Hot Smoking" is for cooking the meat, like barbecue. That only goes for 12 or 18 hours, and it cooks the meat rather than preserving it. Most back-yard smokers you can buy already made are hot smokers for cooking, not preserving, and most of the YouTube videos involve hot smoking for cooking the meat, not preserving it.
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