Meat+Poultry - June 2020 - 53

T

here will always be a level of "art"
involved in smoking barbecue or other
meats, but by combining technology and
a little bit of science with the art, processors
can achieve better quality product for their
customers.
Much of the technology available today
exists to duplicate pit flavor on a much
grander scale.
Jason Jordan, staff meat scientist of Fusion
Tech Integrated, based in Roseville, Ill., is
a longtime traditional barbecuer and said a
lot of today's technology surrounds what the
smokehouse meats should look like, smell like
and taste like.
"The art becomes 'how do I take all of
these environmental inputs from differences
in temperature and humidity, plus moisture in
the wood, and get a consistent product out of
that?'" he said. "It's a lot of trial and error."
Fusion Tech Integrated offers solutions
where they can provide operators with the
results they are looking for by using a majority
of science and just a small percentage of art on
the backend.
"I can remember building my first pit and
how many iterations I had to go through and
figure out the nuances of my traditional-style
pit to deliver the same product every single
day," Jordan said. "With our modern-day
smokehouses, we are inverting that curve. The
predictability piece becomes relatively easy
because I can mitigate all the outside factors
because I have a sophisticated oven that can
control all of that."
Thomas Springman, managing partner
of Kerres USA, Pennsdale, Pa., said Kerres
Anlagensysteme, Backnang, Germany,
produces a smoking system that consists of
numerous design optimizations, which helps
mimic the pit master's flavor and color.
"Kerres can take a single-truck smokehouse
and as capacity or demand increases, the
system can be expanded into a larger, multichamber industrial system," he explained.
"Each Kerres system is engineered with
modular design - each chamber/trolley within
the system has its own environmental control."
Every Kerres chamber piece also has its
own motor and turbine, heating and cooling
system, and hybrid airflow system.
"As we scale up to a larger industrial
application, we don't lose efficiency, we don't

lose consistency and we don't lose capacity
because every trolley within the system,
regardless of the size of the system, is treated as
if it was its own one-truck smokehouse," he said.
The benefits of this Kerres system include
the ability to control breakpoint in an interval
time pattern, which gives even and consistent
results from front to back and top to bottom
of each fully loaded trolley. Also beneficial,
is Kerres' unique ability to precisely control
humidity within the system, very important to
emulate Southern-style pit barbecue products.
"Especially with higher smoking
temperatures and lower humidity levels within
the chamber, without proper airflow, the product
suffers, when trying to produce Southern-style
pit barbecue products," Springman said. "In
an industrial oven, the exchange of air and the
positioning of the air currents is of extreme
importance so you can get that consistent bark
or crust on the product."
With the Kerres Hybrid Air-Modular
Design Smoking System, the operator
can properly condition the exterior of the
product consistently to replicate longer,
lower temperature, slower moving air-type
barbecue systems.
Thanks to a robust cooling capacity, the
Kerres system is also able to cold smoke at
chamber temperatures approximately 45˚ F
to 55˚ F, to give that traditional whole log, old
fashioned pit-style aroma and flavor.
"It doesn't matter what you want to pit
smoke - briskets, baby back ribs, tri tips, half
chickens, bottom rounds, etc. - Kerres first
prepares the products exterior by smoking
and roasting at specific chamber temps with
specific chamber humidity to pull the surface
moisture from the product and properly crust,"
Springman said. "Subsequently, we're able
to roast the product with higher humidity,
which protects yields tremendously and
drastically shortens overall total process time
compared to traditional Southern-style pit
smoke products."

"As we scale
up to a larger
industrial
application,
we don't lose
efficiency, we
don't lose
consistency and
we don't lose
capacity."
- THOMAS SPRINGMAN

SMOKE DETAILS
There are many personal and regional
preferences to what type of smoke is used and
the only "right" kind is the one that delivers on
the flavor and color one is trying to achieve.
Marty Wimmer, product sales manager of
Riverside, Mo.-based Marlen International,
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