The Art of Cold Smoking
Interested in learning the art of cold smoking food and capturing those unmistakably mellow, rich and aromatic flavours? Well you’ve come to right place! At ProQ we are passionate about cold smoking. Find out more about this ancient food preserving method and how easy it is to get started at home.
What is Cold Smoking?
Before the arrival of modern-day refrigeration, a traditional method of preservation was to smoke fresh or cured foods over smouldering wood. Nowadays we tend to mostly use smoke to impart wonderful aromatic flavours to a wide range of foods. This method, known as cold smoking, is the process of creating wood smoke without cooking or heating your food.
Cold smoking is usually done at temperatures below 21°C / 71°F and foods are usually smoked for several hours. Some foods, such as pork and salmon need to be cured before they are smoked. Generally, either a dry cure or a wet cure (a brine) is used – the choice of curing method depends on the type of food and personal preference. Other foods such as cheese, salt, butter, nuts and garlic do not need to be cured before being smoked.
View our cold smoking range
Getting Started With Cold Smoking Food
Making your own smoked cheese is a great way to start your journey into cold smoking. It is a really simple process and the results will make you wonder why you’ve never tried it before. It is great fun experimenting with different cheeses, different smoking woods and the length of time you choose to smoke your cheese for. Once you have mastered cheese, why not try making your own home cured smoked salmon or smoked bacon – you’ll never buy shop bought again!
Get StartedWhy Choose a ProQ Cold Smoker?
Our patented range of ProQ Cold Smoke Generators are designed for smoking food at home – it is great fun, affordable and much easier than you might think!
Released in 2010, the generators are made from high quality stainless steel and are used by top chefs, foodies, fishermen and hunters around the world. The larger Artisan model is perfect for semi-commercial use or for those customers wanting to smoke food in larger quantities.
Once you’ve made your own smoked salmon, you’ll never buy shop bought salmon again!
We recommend that you use genuine ProQ Smoking Wood Dust in your cold smoke generator. Our sustainably sourced dust is milled to a specific grade designed to work perfectly in our cold smokers - so you get a long, consistent smouldering burn everytime.
View our cold smoke generator
Cold Smoking Q&A
You can use any sort of container so long as it has some airflow and has some protection against wet weather. Cold smoking should be done outside and ideally when the climate is cool. To get started, we recommend our ProQ Eco Smoker Box or ProQ Cold Smoking Cabinet as both are designed for the job, easy to use and are both compatible with our patented ProQ Cold Smoke Generator.
Popular cold smoked foods include smoked cheese, smoked salmon, smoked haddock, smoked cured bacon, ham and sausages. You can even cold smoke vegetables, nuts, butter, salt and eggs.
Some foods, such as sausages and bacon, need to be cooked after the smoking process before they can be safely eaten. Other foods such as cheese or smoked cured salmon do not need to be cooked if they have been prepared and stored correctly.
Wood smoke has antimicrobial and antioxidant properties and also helps to reduce moisture content in some foods. Smoking alone is insufficient to fully preserve food, so it usually combined with a curing process. The type of cure required, depends on the food that is being preserved.