5302 SMOKED FOODS/Production
Production commercial smoked products in industrialized coun-
M Vaz-Velho, Escola Superior de Tecnologia e
Gestao, Viana do Castelo, Portugal
Copyright 2003, Elsevier Science Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Background
0001 Smoking is an ancient process for preserving and
flavoring food, and is a traditional part of the diet of a
large section of the world population. Smoking pro-
cesses are mainly applied to flesh food (meat and fish),
but other foodstuffs such as cheese can also be smoked.
0002 The original principle of preservation was due to a
combination of lowered water activity of the product
and the uptake by the product of bactericidal and
antioxidant components of smoke. The secondary
objective is to impart sensory characteristics such as
smoke color and smoke flavor to the product. With
the exception of some African and Asian countries,
where a refrigeration chain is not widely established,
nowadays, smoking is used mainly to give the product
a characteristic flavor, the preservative effect being
slight, and many smoked fish products keep in good
condition for very little longer than the fresh product
from which they were made.
0003 Smoking fish is a very traditional and ancient
process in Northern European countries. However,
smoked meat products, mainly from pork meat,
have a huge impact on the economy of Mediterranean
countries, where a great variety of smoked meat
products are industrially or traditionally produced.
0004 In industrialized countries, despite globalization
and standardization of smoking processes and prod-
ucts, the elements that differentiate and identify a
product have an increasing importance for producers
and consumers to whom it is important to link prod-
ucts to the region where they originated and to their
specific means of production. Within each country,
local resources represented by traditional smoked
products, although produced on a small scale, now
have a great economic impact owing to the creation
of organizations and schemes to exploit diversities
and complementarities and consequently allowing
the achievement of considerable profits.
Smoke Production
0005 A smoked product can be defined as a product that
was prepared by subjecting the raw material to the
direct action of smoke from pyrolysis of wood, wood
shavings or chips, and sawdust.
0006 In most parts of the world, wood is still preferred to
sawdust. Wood leads to a hotter fire, and the products
might be charred, rather than smoked. However,
tries are usually smoked by a sawdust fire where,
unless there is a forced rapid air flow, the sawdust
smolders rather than burns. This lower smoke tem-
perature gives more flavor and preserving substances
to the product. Higher temperatures and more
oxygen oxidize these substances.
Smoke is composed of two phases: 0007
1. A particulate or dispersed phase (droplet phase) 0008
the visible portion of smoke composed of tars,
wood resins, high-boiling phenolic compounds,
and lower boiling compounds that vary with
temperature and smoke concentration.
2. A gaseous or dispersing phase (vapor phase) 0009
most of the characteristic flavor associated with
smoke is present in this gas phase:
Conventional smoke generation methods can be: 0010
1. Simple smoke is generated from pyrolysis of 0011
sawdust and woodchips in a simple fire box.
These wood chips burn the sawdust, and smolder-
ing starts.
2. Continuous Modern smoke producers use a con- 0012
tinuous smoldering by feeding the sawdust slowly
on to a very hot surface.
In both methods, smoke generation temperatures 0013
are dependent on the rate of burning of the wood to
produce heat.
Reducing the temperature to which wood is heated 0014
to minimize the production of undesirable smoke
components such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocar-
bons (PAH) has been an important issue. (See Poly-
cyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons.)
Two methods of smoke generation, in which the 0015
temperature is controlled externally, have been de-
veloped for reducing PAH levels:
1. Fluidized bed generator sawdust is fluidized by 0016
hot air at 350  C, and smoke with a high propor-
tion of acids is formed;
2. Steam smoke generator high-pressure steam at 0017
350  C is passed through a bed of sawdust and
smoke with a high proportion of water is formed.
Electrostatic precipitation has also been shown to 0018
reduce the concentration of PAH. It can be performed
in a continuous tunnel-type kiln, in which the product
is placed between electrical wires with a charge of
2060 kV. The smoke moving through this system is
charged according to its phase, and smoke com-
ponents can precipitate on the oppositely charged
product surface. Electrostatically filtered smoke was
found to be lower in acids, phenol, and carbonyls
than untreated smoke, giving a product with less
smoky aroma and color development. However,