Smoking

Smoke here means wood smoke used on food. Smoking flavors, colors and helps preserve fish, meat and cheese, and when hot it also cooks them.

Say it: SMOHK

By Andrew Cooks · Updated · 13 min read

At a glance

Smoking is preserving and flavoring food (above all fish, meat and cheese) by exposing it to the smoke of smoldering wood. The smoke does three things at once: it dries the surface, it coats the food in savory, antimicrobial and antioxidant compounds that slow spoilage, and it lays down that unmistakable smoky flavor and color. There are two great methods. Cold smoking (below about 30C/85F) flavors and helps preserve WITHOUT cooking the food; it is how smoked salmon, kippers and traditional bacon are made, and because the food stays raw it must first be properly salted or cured for safety. Hot smoking (about 60 to 80C/140-180F) smokes and COOKS the food at once, giving ready-to-eat smoked mackerel, smoked trout and smoked sausage. Smoking almost always follows a salt cure or brine, and pairs naturally with the whole world of cured meat and smoked fish. Read smoking as flavoring and preserving food in wood smoke, the ancient partner of salting.

What it does for you

Smoking preserves food and transforms its flavor, both through the chemistry of wood smoke. As preservation, smoke works several ways: the warm, moving air dries the food's surface, lowering the moisture that microbes need; and the smoke itself carries phenols, organic acids, carbonyls and formaldehyde-like compounds that are antimicrobial (slowing bacteria and mold) and antioxidant (slowing the rancidity of fats).

Cook's tip

Dry the food to a tacky surface before smoking so the smoke sticks evenly, and use only clean hardwood. Resinous softwood makes food taste acrid and can be harmful.

Kitchen trivia

Did you know the smoky flavor we now chase for pleasure began as an accidental side effect of trying to keep food from rotting?

See the answer

Key facts

Method
Varies
Skill level
Intermediate
Origin
Ancient worldwide; preservation origin, now flavor-prized (esp. barbecue)
Cuisines
American barbecue; smoked fish and charcuterie worldwide
Key ingredients
Meats (brisket, ribs, pork, poultry), fish, cheese, bacon/ham, sausage, nuts; smoking wood
Equipment
Offset and pellet smokers, kamado and covered grills, electric and stovetop smokers, cold-smoke generators
Traditional equipment
Smokehouse, pit, offset smoker

Common uses

Smoking is how a great share of the world's preserved and flavored fish, meat and cheese is made. Cold smoking produces smoked salmon, kippers, smoked haddock, bloaters and other cold-smoked smoked fish; traditional dry-cured bacon and many hams; and cold-smoked cheese. Hot smoking produces smoked mackerel, smoked trout, hot-smoked salmon, katsuobushi (smoked skipjack), smoked sausages like kielbasa and andouille, smoked hams, smoked poultry and, in American barbecue, smoked brisket, ribs and pulled pork.

Smoke is also condensed into liquid smoke for flavoring, and used to make smoked paprika (smoked paprika) and chipotle (smoked chilies). Cooks smoke at home in kettle grills, dedicated smokers, stovetop smoke-boxes and even wok-and-tea set-ups, and the craft-food revival has driven home smoking of fish, bacon and cheese. Wherever a food is given the deep flavor, color and keeping quality of woodsmoke (from the deli counter to the barbecue pit), smoking is the method at work.

Match the method to the food, and cure first. For COLD smoking (say, making smoked salmon or a side of bacon) you first salt or cure the food (this does the real preserving and food-safety work), then rinse and air-dry it until the surface turns tacky (a 'pellicle' that helps smoke stick), then hang it in cool smoke below about 30C/85F for hours, keeping the food genuinely cold so it flavors and dries but never cooks. For HOT smoking (smoked mackerel, smoked trout or a smoked sausage) you brine the food, dry it, and smoke it in hotter air (around 60 to 80C/140-180F or more) until it is cooked through to a safe internal temperature (the USDA gives 145F/63C for fish).

Use hardwood (oak, beech, alder, apple, hickory) as chips, sawdust or logs, never resinous softwood, which tastes acrid. Keep everything scrupulously clean and cold before and after cold smoking, refrigerate the results, and remember that cold-smoked fish is still raw: cure it properly and, if you are vulnerable, treat it with care.

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More about smoke

Smoking is the treatment of food, chiefly fish, meat and cheese, by exposing it to smoke from smoldering wood, in order to flavor, color and help preserve it, and (when hot) to cook it. It works through drying of the surface and the deposition of antimicrobial and antioxidant compounds from the smoke, and it is nearly always combined with a preceding salt cure or brine, which does the primary preserving. Two principal methods are distinguished.

In cold smoking, the food is held in cool smoke below about 30C (85F) so it is flavored and surface-dried but NOT cooked, remaining raw: as for smoked salmon, kippers, traditional bacon and smoked cheese; because the food stays raw, it must be properly cured or salted first for safety. In hot smoking, the food is smoked in hotter air, roughly 60 to 80C (140 to 180F) or above, so it is smoked and cooked at the same time and comes out ready to eat, as for smoked mackerel, smoked trout, hot-smoked salmon and many sausages. Smoking is distinct from grilling or barbecue (though barbecue overlaps, using low smoky heat to cook), and from simple drying or curing, which it usually accompanies.

Smoking is a process, but its marks on food are unmistakable. Smoked foods take on a burnished color (golden, amber, mahogany or deep bronze) and a glossy, slightly tacky, dried surface where the smoke has settled. A cold-smoked salmon side stays translucent and silky, deep orange, and raw to the eye; a hot-smoked mackerel or trout turns opaque, firm and flaky, its skin bronzed and crinkled.

Smoked cheese wears a tan or brown rind over a paler interior; smoked sausages and hams glisten darkly. Above all, smoked food SMELLS of smoke: the resinous, campfire, bacon-y aroma of wood smoke that clings to the surface and perfumes the flesh. The smoke itself, drifting from smoldering hardwood chips, sawdust or logs, is the visible agent: a cool gray haze in a cold smoker, a warm scented cloud in a hot one.

The through-line is a dried, colored, aromatic surface and a deep smoky smell: the signature that food has spent hours in wood smoke.

Smoking almost always follows a salt cure, and the salt and smoke together, plus drying, are what make a smoked food keep. Hot smoking adds the preservation of cooking, killing surface microbes with heat. As flavor, smoke deposits hundreds of aromatic compounds that give the deep, savory, resinous 'smoky' taste and the burnished color prized in bacon, smoked salmon, smoked cheese and barbecue.

The same smoke that helps a food keep is what makes it taste of woodsmoke, so, as with curing, preservation and flavor are, in smoking, largely the same act. Cold smoking flavors and helps preserve without cooking; hot smoking flavors, preserves and cooks together.

Step by step

  1. Choose hot or cold smoking.
  2. Set up a smoker with smoldering wood at the right temperature.
  3. Hot-smoke food low and slow until cooked and smoky, or cold-smoke cured food below cooking temperature for flavor.

How to tell it's done

Hot smoking: cooked to safe/tender internal temperature with bark and smoke ring; cold smoking: flavored, not cooked.

Common confusions

Hot smoking COOKS food (low and slow); cold smoking only FLAVORS it and is used on cured foods; cold smoking raw food unsafely is a food-safety hazard.

Safety notes

General kitchen safety tips. Always follow the manufacturer's instructions and current food safety guidance.

Cold smoking does not cook food and can foster dangerous bacteria (including botulism) if done on uncured or improperly handled food. Cold-smoke only properly cured items at safe temperatures. Follow tested curing and smoking guidelines.

Substitutions

Substitutes for smoke
Use insteadHow muchWhat changes
cure (salt-cure first, then smoke)Smoking almost always follows a salt cure or brine: the cure does the preserving and safety work, the smoke flavors
liquid smoke (smoke flavor, no smoker)Condensed wood smoke in water gives a smoky flavor without a smoker; use sparingly

Swaps that don't work

  • Hot smoke vs cold smoke (pick by food): Cold-smoke (below ~30C) to flavor a still-raw food like smoked salmon; hot-smoke (60 to 80C) to cook and flavor at once

Common mistakes

  1. The dangerous mistakes in smoking are about temperature and curing.
  2. Cold smoking does NOT cook the food (it leaves fish and meat raw), so the food must be properly salted or cured first, kept genuinely cold (below about 30C/85F) throughout, and, in the case of fish, treated with the knowledge that cold-smoked fish can harbor Clostridium botulinum type E and Listeria; do not cold-smoke in the danger-zone warmth where bacteria thrive before the cure has done its work.
  3. Never cold-smoke un-cured fish or meat and eat it as if it were cooked.
  4. Conversely, hot smoking must reach a genuinely safe internal temperature (the USDA gives 145F/63C for fish).
  5. A smoker that only warms the food to lukewarm is the worst of both worlds.
  6. Other errors are quality ones: using resinous SOFTWOOD (pine, spruce) or treated wood, which makes food taste acrid and can be harmful; use hardwood only; over-smoking until the food is bitter and ashy; smoking a wet surface (dry the food to a tacky pellicle first so smoke adheres evenly); and letting a smoker get so hot during 'cold' smoking that the fat renders and the fish cooks.
  7. Cure first, control the temperature, use clean hardwood, and refrigerate the results.

In short

Product picks

History

Smoking is one of humanity's oldest food technologies, as old as controlled fire and salting. Prehistoric people hanging meat and fish over a fire to dry it discovered that the smoke helped it keep and made it taste better, and every culture with fire and a surplus of fish or meat learned to smoke it: the smoked salmon and herring of northern Europe, the smoked fish of the Baltic and the Great Lakes, the smoked hams and sausages of Germany and central Europe, the smoked katsuobushi of Japan, the barbecue and smoked meats of the Americas. Smoking and salting together were, before refrigeration, the twin pillars of preserving the catch and the slaughter through the long months: smoked herring and salt cod fed medieval Europe; smoked and salted provisions stocked ships and armies.

The chemistry (that smoke's phenols and acids are antimicrobial and antioxidant) was understood only in modern times, but the practice long predates the theory. As refrigeration removed the pure need to preserve, smoking survived and thrived as a FLAVOR: the smoky taste, once a by-product of keeping food, became something sought for its own sake, from smoked salmon to barbecue.

Is it still used today?

Smoking is everywhere in modern food, industrial and artisan alike. Vast quantities of smoked salmon, kippers, smoked mackerel, bacon, smoked sausage, smoked cheese and smoked poultry are produced commercially, and traditional smokehouses still turn out smoked haddock, katsuobushi and regional specialties. American barbecue, low-and-slow smoked brisket, ribs and pork, is a booming culinary movement, and home smoking of fish, meat and cheese has surged with the craft-food revival, using kettle grills, pellet smokers and stovetop boxes.

Smoke flavor is so prized that it is bottled as liquid smoke and built into countless products, from smoked salts and smoked paprika to smoke-flavored snacks. At the same time, food-safety bodies (the USDA and its Food Safety and Inspection Service, the National Center for Home Food Preservation and the FDA) publish guidance on smoking safely, especially the need to cure fish before cold smoking and to keep cold-smoked fish cold, because of the risk of Clostridium botulinum type E and Listeria. Ancient, essential and now largely pursued for pleasure, smoking remains a core way the world flavors and preserves food.

Questions people ask

What is smoking in cooking?

Smoking is treating food, especially fish, meat and cheese, with the smoke of smoldering wood, to flavor it, color it, help preserve it and, when hot, cook it. The smoke dries the food's surface and coats it in savory, antimicrobial compounds that slow spoilage, while giving that deep smoky taste. There are two main methods.

Cold smoking (below about 30C/85F) flavors and helps preserve the food WITHOUT cooking it, so it stays raw: this is how smoked salmon, kippers and traditional bacon are made, and the food must be salted or cured first for safety. Hot smoking (about 60 to 80C/140-180F) smokes and cooks at once, giving ready-to-eat foods like smoked mackerel, smoked trout and smoked sausage. Smoking almost always follows a salt cure or brine, and is one of the oldest ways of preserving and flavoring food.

What is the difference between cold smoking and hot smoking?

Temperature, and whether the food gets cooked. In COLD smoking, the food is held in cool smoke below about 30C (85F), so it takes on smoke flavor and color and its surface dries, but it never gets hot enough to cook: it stays raw. Cold-smoked foods like smoked salmon, kippers, traditional bacon and smoked cheese must therefore be properly salted or cured first, because the cure, not the smoke, does the food-safety work.

In HOT smoking, the food is smoked in hotter air (roughly 60 to 80C/140-180F or more), so it is smoked and COOKED at the same time and comes out ready to eat, as with smoked mackerel, smoked trout, hot-smoked salmon and smoked sausages. Cold smoking is about flavor and preservation of a still-raw food; hot smoking flavors, preserves and cooks together. Both use the same wood smoke, just at very different temperatures.

Do you have to cure or salt food before smoking it?

For cold smoking, almost always yes; for hot smoking, usually yes for flavor and often for safety too. Because cold smoking does not cook the food, the smoke alone will not make raw fish or meat safe; the salting or cure that comes first is what draws out moisture, adds salt and (with curing salt) guards against botulism, so cold-smoked fish and bacon are cured, then smoked. Skipping the cure and cold-smoking raw fish is genuinely risky.

Hot smoking cooks the food, so heat does much of the safety work, but the food is still normally brined or salted first for flavor, texture and extra protection. In short, smoking and salting are partners: the salt or cure preserves and seasons, the smoke flavors and helps dry and protect the surface. Follow a tested recipe for the cure as well as the smoke.

What wood should you use for smoking, and why not softwood?

Use hardwoods, and avoid resinous softwoods. Good smoking woods are hardwoods like oak, beech, alder, hickory, mesquite, apple, cherry and other fruit woods, used as chips, chunks, sawdust or logs; each lends a slightly different flavor (alder and fruit woods mild and sweet, oak and hickory stronger, mesquite bold). Resinous SOFTWOODS (pine, spruce, fir and other conifers) are avoided because their sap and resins burn to a harsh, sooty, acrid smoke that tastes unpleasant and coats food in undesirable compounds; treated, painted or plywood scraps are dangerous and must never be used.

The wood should smolder to make smoke rather than blaze, and you want clean, thin, bluish smoke, not thick white or black smoke, which makes food bitter. Choose a clean hardwood suited to the food, keep it smoldering steadily, and do not over-smoke.

Is smoked food safe to eat?

Yes, when it is made and stored properly, but smoked fish in particular carries real cautions. Hot-smoked foods are cooked, so if they reach a safe internal temperature (the USDA gives 145F/63C for fish) and are then refrigerated, they are as safe as other cooked foods. Cold-smoked foods are RAW, preserved by their cure and smoke rather than by cooking, so they depend on correct salting/curing, cold storage and careful handling; cold-smoked fish like smoked salmon can occasionally carry Listeria, and improperly handled smoked fish can support Clostridium botulinum type E, so ready-to-eat cold-smoked fish is a food that pregnant, elderly and immunocompromised people are often advised to heat or avoid.

Keep smoked fish cold, observe use-by dates, and follow tested recipes and food-safety guidance (USDA, FDA, NCHFP) when smoking at home. There is also general advice to enjoy heavily charred or smoked foods in moderation. Made and stored correctly, smoked food is a safe and ancient part of the diet.

What foods are smoked?

A huge range of fish, meat, cheese and more. Smoked fish includes smoked salmon, kippers, smoked haddock, smoked mackerel, smoked trout, bloaters and Japanese katsuobushi. Smoked meats include bacon, many hams, pastrami, smoked sausages like kielbasa and andouille, smoked poultry, and the smoked brisket, ribs and pulled pork of barbecue.

Cheese is smoked (smoked cheddar, gouda, provolone and scamorza), as are some vegetables, nuts, salt and even tofu. Whole spice products are made by smoking: smoked paprika from smoke-dried peppers, chipotle from smoked chilies, and smoke itself is bottled as liquid smoke. Smoking is often combined with curing, drying and fermenting.

In short, most of the deeply smoky foods you meet (at the deli, the barbecue, the breakfast table and the cheese board) are made by exposing salted or cured food to wood smoke.

Trivia answer

For most of human history, nobody smoked food because they liked the taste of smoke; they did it because it kept the food from spoiling. Hanging fish and meat in the smoke of a fire dries the surface and coats it in compounds from the burning wood (phenols, organic acids and carbonyls) that happen to be antimicrobial (they slow the bacteria and molds that cause rot) and antioxidant (they slow the fats from turning rancid). Combined with salting and drying, smoke let people carry a catch of herring or a slaughtered pig through the winter, provision ships and armies, and trade preserved food across a continent, long before refrigeration existed.

The smoky flavor was simply the unavoidable, at-first-incidental signature of that preservation. Then, over the last century or so, refrigeration removed the sheer NEED to smoke food to keep it, and something interesting happened: instead of dying out, smoking flourished, because by then people had grown to love the taste for its own sake. The by-product became the point.

Today most smoked salmon, barbecue, smoked cheese and bacon is smoked chiefly for FLAVOR, and smoke is even bottled as liquid smoke and dusted on as smoked paprika: a whole industry built on an aroma that started life as the smell of food being saved from the bin.

Origin and background

Why it was developed

Preserve and flavor food with wood smoke; hot smoking also cooks low and slow.

Related

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