Local butcher installs smokehouse

Ham, bacon and chicken will be smoked on the Peninsula in an initiative taken by a local butcher.

Peninsula Budget Meats, of Woy Woy, recently installed an automatic German-designed smokehouse.

It was lowered by crane through a hole in the roof.

Proprietor Chris Rawson, who has owned Peninsula Budget Meats for over four years, said that he was not really happy with the quality of smoked goods that he had been buying and decided to do it all himself.

He uses traditional beechwood chips imported from Germany to achieve the best flavour.

A smoke box underneath the smokehouse takes the wood chips, which are touched by an electric prod so as to smoulder but not catch alight.

The smoke is then received by the enclosed smokehouse and kept there in a pre-heated oven for one hour of smoking.

"This is what gives it that authentic wood smoke flavour," Chris said.

Other parts of the process include steam being pumped into the oven, followed by more heat and finally a shower of water.

The whole process takes between nine and 12 hours and can cook 30 hams at a time.

The hams are all cured in a special conveyor-belted pickling machine with several needles piercing each one along its full length.

They are also placed in specially made cheesecloth bags, with one fitted with a probe to monitor the hams to ensure they are properly cooked.

"The smokehouse is currently used for hams, chickens, turkeys and bacon," Chris said.

"Next year, we'll get into salamis, frankfurts and different chicken parts."

Peninsula Budget Meats, located next door to the Commonwealth Bank, has been a butcher shop since opening in the 1930s.

It is a heritage listed building and the only remaining main street butcher in Woy Woy.

Cec Bucello, December 4