How Long Does it Take to Cold Smoke – Meat, Vegetables & Cheese

The time it takes to cold smoke, will, of course, depend on how much smoke flavor you want and what food your cold smoking.

I have experimented using a whole bunch of different food types and kit. So I thought I would quickly give a rundown below on cold smoked meat, vegetables, cheese & of course bacon times.

I recently did a super long cold smoke, compared to what I generally do which is around 8-20 hours (1-3 days / 3 sessions mainly at night). 55 hours of cold smoking some wild venison and equilibrium dry cured bacon. But for many other cold smoked foods (especially vege & cheese), you really don’t need that extreme end of it.

Don’t think the rules are really strict, but it depends on what outcomes you’re chasing.

The density of the smoke and the type of wood will also have quite an effect on flavor. From what I have learned about Central and Eastern European traditional cold smoking, which has probably over 1,000 years of development. Lighter smoke with lots of air flow seems to generally be the go over longer periods for cold smoked meats, Central Europe like Germany love the long strong bacony Speck for instance.

TIP Don’t go crazy on the smoke

Many enthusiastic smokers have pumped out heaps of smoke like myself on occasion, the result, bitter and not worthy of serving friends and family, go light always better.

How Long Does Cold Smoking Take? 1-30 days for many cured meat styles across the world. For dairy (cheese, cream etc.) and vegetables, 15 minutes to 4 hours will impart an adequate smoked flavor.

Cold Smoking Times for Different Foods

Just going to touch over what cold smoking times I used for:

• Meats – Bacon, Wild Game, Salmon
• Dairy
• Vegetables

How Long to Cold Smoke Meat

Of course, it depends on the method and flavor. Some cold smoking equipment, you can have adjustable smoke and/or air flow when you technical!

Cold Smoked Bacon

I go for a lighter/medium blend of wood normally for the cold smoking, so apple wood combined with something that’s a bit more medium like beech.

If you want an easy breakdown of smoking wood, I wrote a full post here.

Now, of course, cold smoking needs to be done in a coldish environment and this will also be affected by the humidity. If the goal is flavor then the weight loss isn’t so important. But if you are looking to get the proper preservation through cold smoking/drying than you will need to continue the cold smoking and dry phase until targets are reached.

My favorite method is to use a dry-cured pancetta recipe with some cold smoking to make a piece of hybrid bacon (as done in certain regions of Italy).

Cold Smoked Salmon

Smoke is a personal taste, of course, sometimes I go for just 6 hours cold smoking salmon, at the higher end 24 hours.

But if your goal is preservation, then losing 20-30% weight would also be the goal. Cold smoking can be either about flavor, preserving or both!

Cold Smoked Wild Venison

Same deal as above, the meat is of similar density, I use the same guidelines. However, wild meat being lean will mean the fat will take longer to dry out as well. That should probably be a tip.

TIP – if there is fat in the red meat, it will take longer to cold smoke/dry!

How Long to Cold Smoke Diary – Cheese, Cream etc.

From the book Smoked, it says cream should be smoked for no longer than 1 hour. Which seems to provide a decent amount of smokey flavor, when I made a Smoked Potato Gratin.

This is about the right flavor for my preference also.

Cheese – a lot denser so 1 hour seems to work for a light smoke. Up until about 4 hours if you have a decent block and you really want to give it a flavor bomb!

How Long to Cold Smoke Vegetables

From the book Smoked by Jermy Schmid, it never says go over one hour, I never have, the outcomes have been very interesting and delicious.

Vegetables I have smoked:

• Eggplant
• Beetroot
• Corn
• Tomatoes
• Mushrooms

Things I want to try:

• cashews
• walnuts
• sweet potato
• and so many more!

Out of these, my personal favorites have been eggplant and beetroot – it seemed to add a great flavor angle with applewood after about one hour of cold smoking (that session was in the rain too

TIP Sprinkle salt on the eggplant to draw out some moisture wash and leave in the fridge to dry out so the smoke vapor can get into the aubergine.

How Long to Cold Smoke Salt

I’m pretty sure it was about 30-40 minutes, it really took on what I can only describe as a ‘caramel’ smell and taste with apple wood. Bizarre but enjoyable! Wouldnt want to go longer than that though.

If your looking for the 'ducks nuts' (that means a very good bit of equipment). A smoke generator can be used as a cold smoker, or adding smoke to indirect cooking which equates to a form of 'low & slow' bbq or making smoked ham and some much more.

The inventor of smoke generators was Smokai, it's a simple device that uses the venturi effect and a variable air pump to control the amount of smoke you are pumping.

I have a range of cold smoking options, and the Smokai is my favorite.

By far the smokai is the most efficient cold smoker I've come across because you have control. 

It also burns very clean, which flavors the food exceptionally well. I've been using smoke generators for over 10 years, and this one is the ducks nuts.

Check out this review I did of the Smokai Smoke Generator here.

What is Happening When Meat is Cold Smoked?

When I read a few books specifically about cold smoking, one is from the 1970s, it was fascinating to really learn about the impact of humidity and that cold smoking is really just another form of drying the meat for preservation purposes. Just like all the stuff I have been doing with dry cured meats, or salumi – cold smoked meats just have the benefits of the cold smoke like the anti-bacterial & antifungal effect.

So drying is really what is going on (with smoke to help the preservation), this is after the first phase which is using salt to draw out moisture, which makes the environment in the meat inhospitable to bacteria growth. For meat VERY important, for all other foods like vege and diary – Eggplant is the only one I think salt is needed for.

Why Does Cold Smoking Take so Long?

Specifically talking about cold smoked meat, since there isn’t any cooking going on like with hot smoking / low and slow smoking – it’s about the drying out the meat slowly, on not getting the outside dried out before the middle has.

But you want the humidity to be about 60-70% so that the outside of the meat doesn’t go hard (case hardening), you want even removal of the moisture.

As a related example, with dry cured meat, this is achieved by a DIY curing chamber like this, it’s a similar idea for cold smoking. But I like to cold smoke around or lower than the dry curing temps.

Ideal Dry Curing Temps = 50-60°F / 10-15°C

Or like they do in traditional Italian salumi production, drying is done near lakes and rivers where humidity is naturally a bit higher.

The Curing Time vs. the Cold Smoking Time

Since the salt curing is part of the cold smoking process, the old school way was ‘salt box’ method or saturation method. This is where you immerse the meat into salt for a set number of days depending on the weight of the meat. But the new school method is equilibrium curing, this method involved calculating a percentage of salt compared to the weight of the meat.

ie. 2% salt = 2g per 1000g of meat.

The huge advantage of this is that you can choose the level of saltiness. The curing is done wrapped up or vac packed to make sure all the salt inhibits the meat. Using reusable sous vide bags inside other bags is a method I want to experiment with, so I avoid single-use plastic.

If you want more info on the curing side of cold smoking, I wrote a full post on cold smoking covering all the important bits, check it out here.

Tom Mueller

Thanks for dropping by, I’ve been passionate about meat curing for decades.

I Hunt, Fish, Forage, Buy, Butcher (Wannabe Norcini), Make, Savor (I’m not a Saviour), and love curing and smoking meat.

Learning and consuming in a circular fashion, I am always interested in what is happening around the curing and smoking world

Seeking the passionate behind the passion.