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blowin

Meat or fish smoked over that lovely-smelling turf sounds nice , and a seemingly obvious place to do it would be in the chimney if you are already burning the stuff . This must have been done before ( may even be traditional ??? ) and there is plenty of interest in home smoking so why isn't it commonplace ?
Let's assume that it would not be difficult to cut a hole into the flue , and that you could have two at different heights for hot / cold smoking .

wayland · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 1171 Location: Campile. Wexford

I dont know about smoking with turf. I do know that people used to distill paraffin from it in the past Confused

. I had a smoker in the UK and the problem I had was trying to keep the damn thing cool enough to cold smoke. Even the sun shinning on it sent the temp rocketing. All good experience for my next effort though. Wink

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gai · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 83 Location: Co Donegal

Didn't HFW do something similar with his chimmney in the first series of River Cottage ? I must dig out the book to see if there's any mention of it.

blowin · Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 3:41 am Post subject:

That would be great , thanks Wink

Parafin from turf ? Are you being serious or is that an explanation for the mysterious appearance of that very Irish liquid which burns with a clear blue flame ? Can't remember what you call it . Can't remember anything after sniffing the bottle , come to think of it ! Laughing

( just for the record I am TT Wink

)
The locals say it contains iodine . Does that sound right ? If so , would the smoke have particularly good preservative properties ?

bref · Joined: 16 Dec 2006 Posts: 136 Location: South Dublin

I saw something on the telly a little while back about this fella way back that started extracting some kinnd of liquid from turf. It was a huge operation . I think it was somewhere in the western isles in scotland(dont quote me). I think what was extracted was some kind of tarry substance, but I'm sure if it was refined further.....
Re the chimney smoker..I would be very hesitant to knock a hole into my chimney breast(well especially since I live in a semi d and the chimney runs between). However, you lads with a bit of building knowledge would probably poo poo my concerns.
I use a weber kettle barbeque to smoke chicken and it is very good if I may say so. Hot smoking obviously.
I believe in Norway they have a little shack for smoking and they run a small tunnel,(maybe a pipe from where they have their fire) to the bottom of the shack. The fire is a little bit below or down hill of the shack. This is for cold smoking.
There is quite a lot of stuff out there on smoking like this http://www.cfast.vt.edu/Publications/smokefish.shtml

wayland · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 1171 Location: Campile. Wexford

That is the program that I got the parraffin notion from. The lads that were telling the story tried to do the same process on the beach. All that was required was a crude still and a bon fire. They got half a jar full before the still turned into a flame thrower. Impressive it was Very Happy

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bref · Joined: 16 Dec 2006 Posts: 136 Location: South Dublin

Yep, thats the one. Do you remember where it was?

wayland · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 1171 Location: Campile. Wexford

Scotland somewhere I think.

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