If you’re looking to make the meat you cook taste better, there are plenty of techniques that can be applied to it in order to improve it. Marinating, brining, even just a pinch of salt can all help bring out the potential of meat. One method that’s not practiced as much as it used to be is the use of meat smokers to add flavor from burning wood.

If you’re sure that you’re dedicated enough to smoking foods that you will make frequent use of a smoker, purchasing a meat smoker is the way to go. Commercially made meat smokers have solid construction and controls that can control temperature, the smoking time, even the amount of smoke.

If someone suggests to you that you should take up smoking as a hobby, it may be that they’re not talking about cigarettes at all, but the process of smokers, which is used to add flavor to foods. Hot smokers ensure that the smoke coming from the burned material is still hot as it passes over the meat. Just as when you steam vegetables, the heat carried in the air will cook the food, while the smoke will impart flavors.

When you cold smoke something, you place it in an enclosure that is kept separate from the fire. Contrary to the name of the technique, this often requires that the food is kept at room temperature. When combined with salting and curing meat, using smokers results in foods that, instead of being highly perishable, can instead be kept for very long periods of time.