The Old-Fashioned Smokehouse

In the back yard of my grandparents’ home in the quaint village of Lynchburg, Ohio stood a small six by six building erected for the purpose of smoking meat. By the time I can recall however, it simply served as a garden storage shed and rabbit hutch. The intrigue it left me with has haunted me for over fifty years, until at last I have one of my own!

Smokehouses have been a traditional part of the American landscape since the colonial days. It is said if you had pigs, you had a smokehouse. Salt was used to cure the meats, while smoke aided in the preservation and added flavor. Smoking kills bacteria, dries the meat, and forms a protective acidic layer safeguarding the product. The availability of fresh pork from the store, along with home freezers began the demise of the historic smokehouse.

Rhonda and I began to brainstorm how best to build the structure when we simultaneously decided to make the small building that holds our generator into a combination generator/smokehouse. 

Construction was soon underway with concrete blocks on the bottom, the original structure sitting on top, while being sided with some old, weathered floorboards. 

A timeworn woodstove, previously purchased at an auction for two dollars, was put in place to provide the smoke.

On the big pig butchering day, we set the hams and bacon aside to be salt cured for about a week. Now for the big test! With the wood stove fired up, hams and bacon hanging in the smokehouse, and a goal of a smoke filled 150-degree environment, we began our escapade. To our delight, the green hickory and apple wood set aside for the duty did well. 

Four hours later, the meat curing was complete and after cooling, the bacon was sliced and all was put in the freezer for safe keeping.

In times past, the meat often stayed in the smokehouse, which was then dubbed the meat house. In our case, we felt more comfortable utilizing our freezers for storage, allowing the generator to go back to its rightful place in the now smokehouse/generator house. We have eaten some bacon, and the taste was delicious! I can now check off another homesteading adventure here on Providence Prairie and wait for new pigs to grow and the journey will begin again!

~Mark