What is liquid smoke and what do I want it for?

What is liquid smoke and what do I want it for? Liquid smoke or Asap Cair is smoke, from smoking... but liquid. Hey, that's it. End of article. Nope? Do you want us to tell you more? Okay come on.

the smoked

Well, you see, the smoking process is something very old that is mainly used to preserve food, especially meat. And by the way, it gives them that little flavor that we easily recognize in bacon, but also in other products such as smoked paprika, sausages (the packaged ones), smoked salmon, bacon, chorizo, some cheeses...

To smoke, food is placed on (above but not touching) a source of smoke, which is usually wood with little resin (the very resinous ones smell a little like burning plastic) that smell very good. This aroma is impregnated in the food and in addition to giving it a little flavor, it also helps it dry out and preserve it better, due to certain compounds in this smoke.

Now, don't think that everything that has a smoked flavor has been there curing for months, no way, for that (and to enhance that flavor) liquid smoke and the aroma of smoke were invented, and you can find it in a lot of things, also in “bacon flavor” things, snacks, sauces, meats of all kinds, vegetable “meats”, pizzas, lasagna, salads, sunflower seeds, soups… we have done a search by ingredient in OpenFoodFacts and it returns 267 products.

This aroma is not so new, it was invented at the end of the 19th century, also for the purpose of flavoring and partly for its bactericidal properties (although it does not have as many as direct smoking). The chemist Ernest H. Wright saw that the smoke condensed in the chimney pipe and fell in the form of brown droplets, and like any normal person, when he sees something brown dripping in a kitchen, he licked it and said “oops. It tastes like smoke." Said like that it sounds disgusting, but basically it is what is done to make essential oils and things like that, only dry. So by replicating the process he managed to make liquid smoke, and thereafter marketed it as Wright's Liquid Smoke, which is still sold today. Other companies also saw that it was easy to do and that is why there are now so many. And since it is a pleasant flavor, it can be used in a lot of things.

Wright's liquid smoke, sold in American stores

How is it done now?

Well, basically the same: they burn bits of aromatic wood such as mesquite, caria, apple, cherry, walnut, almond, orange, beech… come on, the same ones that they sell you to throw on the barbecue. When you burn wood, smoke and water vapor are formed, and this vapor captures some of the smoke, condenses in a cooling tube, distills into a concentrate, and is filtered to remove impurities.

But isn't smoke bad?

Surely you have read that burning wood produces, among other things, toxic compounds such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, but in the case of liquid smoke it is not a problem, because most of these compounds remain in the tar, from which the liquid is separated and filtered. usable. The truth is that the production of liquid smoke and smoke aromas is regulated, as Gummies de Petróleo comments in this post, and it is safe for consumption. Unless you drink three or four bottles a day, then you can have problems.

Where do I buy it?

Well, look, the one that we usually use and give as an example is from the “Ahumadito” brand, but it is not the only one that exists, there are more brands, each one with the flavor of the woods that they have used (many times it puts it in the front of the bottle). They sell it in Latin food stores, in some supermarkets (I buy it at Carrefour), in gourmet stores, vegan stores and online stores.