A smoke house preserves meat and fish by slow drying and the antimicrobial compounds in wood smoke. Cold smoking, at 20-30 °C for 1-4 weeks on salted or brined meat, keeps it for months; hot smoking, at 60-90 °C for hours, cooks and smokes it at once but gives a shorter shelf life. Burn hardwoods only, never pine, spruce, cedar or other resinous softwoods.
A smoke house is a small enclosed building or chamber in which meat and fish are hung in wood smoke to dry and preserve them.
A Smoke House Is A Fire Box, A Channel And A Chamber
The three parts of a cold-smoking house are a fire box, a smoke channel and a smoking chamber. A hot-smoking house merges the first and last. Cold smoking runs at 20-30 °C and takes 1-4 weeks; hot smoking runs at 60-90 °C and takes hours. Which you build depends on whether you need food that keeps for months or food you will eat within days. Both give flavor; only cold smoking, on cured meat, gives long keeping, and it is also the more demanding method to do safely.
The design pages cover each part: Hot Smoke vs Cold Smoke Design, Fire Box & Smoke Channel and Hanging & Rack Systems. For the simplest build, see Smokehouse Build; for the method of cold smoking itself, Cold Smoking; and for the broader family of methods, Food Preservation.
What You Need
- A fire box for the fire, separate from the chamber (cold smoking)
- A smoke channel, a pipe, trench or tunnel 3-5 m long (cold smoking)
- A tall chamber, 2-3 m, with racks or hooks and a vent at the top
- Hardwood fuel: hickory, oak, apple, cherry or maple
- Salt or brine, for curing the meat first
Method: Choose And Plan
Step 1: Decide cold or hot. Cold for months of keeping, hot for a fast cooked product.
Step 2: Cure before smoking. The meat must be salted or brined first. Smoke alone does not make cold-smoked meat safe.
Step 3: Build the parts to suit. See the child pages.
Step 4: Burn the right wood. Hardwoods only. Pine, spruce, cedar and other resinous softwoods give toxic smoke and a bad taste.
Step 5: Place it downwind of living areas. Smoke odor is persistent.
Common Mistakes
- Smoking uncured meat at low temperature — the chamber sits in the range where bacteria grow.
- Resinous wood — toxic smoke.
- Fire box inside the chamber for cold smoke — too hot; the channel exists to cool the smoke.
Safety
Carbon monoxide, fire and food poisoning
A smoldering fire produces carbon monoxide, which has no smell or color and can kill in an enclosed space; never tend a smoke house fire inside a closed room or sleep near one. Smoke houses burn: keep the chamber and channel clear of dry grass and loose timber, and have water on hand. Smoked meat that was not properly cured can carry botulism and other food-poisoning organisms; see Cold Smoking. See also Carbon Monoxide Risk.
What’s Next
- Learn next: Hot Smoke vs Cold Smoke Design — choosing between the layouts
- Combine with: Large-Scale Smoking & Curing — scaling up