Before the refrigeration and canning process were developed, the only way to preserve beef, poultry, pork and fish is by salt curing and smoking meats. Smoke house become common structure owned by every family farm and many cities had commercial smoke houses that sell smoked meats. The function of a smoke house is to preserve large amounts of meat product which is particularly beef and pork. It takes 2 weeks or more to finish the smoking process and the finished product often stored inside the smoke houses until needed for use.
- Old smokehouses
These structures have both functions as meat smokers and storage facilities. One smoke house could be expensive for one household to own, so they share the same house smokers from the communal smokers. Preservation starts with the salt curing and prolonged smoking for about 2 weeks or more using cold smoke. The smoked product will continue to hang in a different area of the smoker until needed. Other types of old smokehouses are XV-century smokehouses, Polish smokehouses and American XVIII century smokehouses.
- Old commercial Meat smokehouses
These structures are more improved in design commercial part. The multi chamber smokehouses shared smoke channels that led into a common chimney. Some units will be dedicated to hot smoking and some to cold smoking as the areas were physically separated to allow for smooth temperature control. For some smokehouses, each unit had its own exit channel that enters a common chimney. Other type of old commercial meat smokehouses are the separate smoking and cooking smokehouses and multilevel smokehouses.
- Torry Kiln Smokehouse
This smokehouse type has been designed at the Research Center Torry in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1939. It has precise control of smoking parameters like humidity, speed and air temperature. The result of the finished product is always consistent in high quality.
A smoke house is traditionally used to prepare and cure meats long before refrigeration was invented. A smokehouse creates flavorful meats and the different types of wood chips used for smoking creates particular flavors. A smokehouse can be built from cinder blocks. Hope you made up your mind by now on what type of smoke house you prefer to have.
Additional Reading:
http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/smokehouse-old.htm
http://www.ehow.com/about_4744391_smoke-houses.html
Image Credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/3869197467/
