I’m reviewing recipes for the salmon contest…and have seen liquid smoke as in ingredient in some of the recipes. Frankly, that scares me…it sounds like a funky engineered food product.
Someone please tell me what liquid smoke is and how it is made…
Comments 7
Rhonda Kyle
Liquid smoke is made from wood chips specifically hardwood chips; and preferably hickory; the chips are smoked and somehow then condensed and added with water; and when used in cooking it tends to add a smokey flavor to food.
Liquid smoke isn’t scary and actually makes for some pretty tasty meat for those of us who aren’t fortunate enough to own smokers.
It’s basically just a distilled condensation of smoldering wood — no freaky chemicals or artificial flavors (although I’m sure you can find that kind, too). I recently watched Alton Brown make his own liquid smoke to add to homemade beef jerky. Pretty interesting. Here is part of that transcript:
“All you have to do is build yourself a still. Break out a grill, a smoker, or an outdoor fireplace, anything that has a chimney on it, and extend that chimney with a piece of heat ventilation pipe from the hardware store. That’s going to allow the smoke to cool off so that it will be easier to gather. Now I just use a little collar of foil at the bottom so that it’ll seat and I put another piece of foil up at the top. And I top that with a bundt pan, perfect for liquid smoke collection.
Chuck in some burning charcoal and follow that with a couple of handfuls of well-soaked wood chips. Then, the actual distiller part. You’re going to need to place a bowl that’s a little narrower than the bundt pan on top. And you’ve got to prop it up for air flow with a couple of pieces of metal, I don’t know, pencils, chopsticks, whatever. Then on top of that bowl place a bag—a zip top—full of ice. That is going to chill the bowl and that’ll force condensation which will then run down—as you can see here—into the bundt pan for easy gathering. Now this is basically the same way that whiskey and bourbon are made.
Now about ten minutes later, you can come back, and you will notice that you’ve got probably about a tablespoon of liquid smoke accumulated in the bottom of the pan. Of course, the more wood you burn, the more liquid smoke you’ll make. Yum.”
Hilary – Pretty Cool very interesting!
Thanks and Have a great evening
Rhonda!
sterling moeller
On the show Good Eats with Alton Brown he showed how to make your own liquid smoke. It isn’t engineered at all, it is merely condensing the smoke from burning wood. I have been looking all over the place to find some instructions or video on it but can’t find it anywhere. It was basically one of those patio chimnea fireplaces and to make the smoke he did the following….make a ring out of aluminum foil to fit on top of the chimnea. Carefully nestle a bundt cake pan on top of the foil ring, next place a wire cake cooling rack on the cake pan. Place a medium sized metal mixing bowl on top of the cooling rack, make sure that the mixing bowl is slightly smaller in diameter than the cake pan. As the fire is burning (not a raging inferno, just a slow fire) place baggies of ice cubes on top of the metal mixing bowl…replace with fresh ice when melted. As the fire burns and the smoke rises it will condense on the ice-cooled mixing bowl and collect into the bundt pan. As far as I can remember that was about all there was too it. Just store in an airtight container of some sort when done.
Comments 7
Liquid smoke is made from wood chips specifically hardwood chips; and preferably hickory; the chips are smoked and somehow then condensed and added with water; and when used in cooking it tends to add a smokey flavor to food.
hope this helps
Thanks, Rhonda. So, is it kind of like a smoked wood chip tea? Sounds like it is wood chips steeped in water…
Liquid smoke isn’t scary and actually makes for some pretty tasty meat for those of us who aren’t fortunate enough to own smokers.
It’s basically just a distilled condensation of smoldering wood — no freaky chemicals or artificial flavors (although I’m sure you can find that kind, too). I recently watched Alton Brown make his own liquid smoke to add to homemade beef jerky. Pretty interesting. Here is part of that transcript:
“All you have to do is build yourself a still. Break out a grill, a smoker, or an outdoor fireplace, anything that has a chimney on it, and extend that chimney with a piece of heat ventilation pipe from the hardware store. That’s going to allow the smoke to cool off so that it will be easier to gather. Now I just use a little collar of foil at the bottom so that it’ll seat and I put another piece of foil up at the top. And I top that with a bundt pan, perfect for liquid smoke collection.
Chuck in some burning charcoal and follow that with a couple of handfuls of well-soaked wood chips. Then, the actual distiller part. You’re going to need to place a bowl that’s a little narrower than the bundt pan on top. And you’ve got to prop it up for air flow with a couple of pieces of metal, I don’t know, pencils, chopsticks, whatever. Then on top of that bowl place a bag—a zip top—full of ice. That is going to chill the bowl and that’ll force condensation which will then run down—as you can see here—into the bundt pan for easy gathering. Now this is basically the same way that whiskey and bourbon are made.
Now about ten minutes later, you can come back, and you will notice that you’ve got probably about a tablespoon of liquid smoke accumulated in the bottom of the pan. Of course, the more wood you burn, the more liquid smoke you’ll make. Yum.”
Hillary – do you have a link to where you got that transcript?
Yep. Here you go.
Hilary – Pretty Cool very interesting!
Thanks and Have a great evening
Rhonda!
On the show Good Eats with Alton Brown he showed how to make your own liquid smoke. It isn’t engineered at all, it is merely condensing the smoke from burning wood. I have been looking all over the place to find some instructions or video on it but can’t find it anywhere. It was basically one of those patio chimnea fireplaces and to make the smoke he did the following….make a ring out of aluminum foil to fit on top of the chimnea. Carefully nestle a bundt cake pan on top of the foil ring, next place a wire cake cooling rack on the cake pan. Place a medium sized metal mixing bowl on top of the cooling rack, make sure that the mixing bowl is slightly smaller in diameter than the cake pan. As the fire is burning (not a raging inferno, just a slow fire) place baggies of ice cubes on top of the metal mixing bowl…replace with fresh ice when melted. As the fire burns and the smoke rises it will condense on the ice-cooled mixing bowl and collect into the bundt pan. As far as I can remember that was about all there was too it. Just store in an airtight container of some sort when done.