Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

A source for hard to find information

Customer Rating:

After some disappointing experiences with hobby wood smokers and flashier and often more attractive texts on curing and smoking, I was delighted to find this book (I bought the English edition - at a signficantly higher price - in the UK after browsing it in a hunting/fishing shop on a wet day). The author does tend to be a bit obsessive but clearly his instructions are written from exhaustive, first hand experience. He encourages a flexible approach and rightly says that recipes will need to be adapted for indiviual use or taste(factors which may have deterred some previous reviewers who felt the text was too basic or lacked specifics). The discussion and comparison of smoking techniques (hot, cold and water smokers)is helpful in deciding what type or types to buy or make. Finding reliable guidelines on small scale curing and cold smoking meat is difficult, this little book is a mine of useful information for a hobbyist like me (the family particularly misses UK style bacon in the USA). We have also tried a few of the fresh sausage recipes (which don't need smoking)and have been pleased with the results. More importantly, after reading this book, I now understand why we had some really inedible results with previous attempts.

Mastering the Craft of Smoking Food.	Customer Rating:
Precisely the kind of information I needed to advance from my previous pedestrian attempts at smoking.

very helful	Customer Rating:
needed some data on smoking and this was the book to supple that data,thank you.

Smoking meat	Customer Rating:
This book is worthless if you need advise in "At-Home Smoking Meat" using a gas up-Right smoker !! (ie Camp-Chief..etc.)It's geared toward commercial use,not the "Back-Yarder".

If you want to learn to smoke foods, this is the book!

Customer Rating:

This is probably the most complete, detailed book available on smoking food. It's not a barbecue book, it's a smoking book. Written by Warren Anderson, a food enthusiast and long-time food smoker, It covers both cold and hot smoking and includes detailed instructions for building your own smoker, or using commercial smokers. Warren shares everything he has learned through years of smoking food. A chapter covers smoking woods, where to get them and the characteristics of different types of woods. The chapter on cures and marinades covers brines, dry and wet cures, and marinades. Detailed recipes and instructions are included for making smoked bacon, ham, pastrami, jerky, cheese, turkey, fish, shellfish, sausage, nuts, and even smoked Peking duck. It's interesting that the Publisher's Weekly review is critical of the book for being TOO detailed. According to Publisher's Weekly, the descriptions and techniques "read like a technical manual, although Cook's Illustrated fans might welcome the excruciating detail. Though directed toward nonprofessionals, this book isn't likely to please armchair chefs." So, if you are an "armchair chef", this book may not be for you, but as Publisher's Weekly says "for those who plan to make a habit of smoking food, Anderson delivers". If you are serious about smoked food then this book is for you.