24
Jun
2008
Jun
2008
What is Liquid Smoke?
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…
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
June 25th, 2008 at 4:14 amThanks, Rhonda. So, is it kind of like a smoked wood chip tea? Sounds like it is wood chips steeped in water…
June 25th, 2008 at 8:45 amLiquid 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.”
June 25th, 2008 at 11:58 amHillary - do you have a link to where you got that transcript?
June 25th, 2008 at 12:54 pmYep. Here you go.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:14 pmHilary - Pretty Cool very interesting!
June 25th, 2008 at 5:48 pmThanks and Have a great evening
Rhonda!