Smoking Snacks! Cashew Nuts.

Featuring a brief introduction to the basics of cold smoking and food and beer matching.

In the Woodston Smokehouse R&D kitchen, we take the same approach towards creating new snacks as we apply when sourcing beer. We are looking for products that are either brand new or proven classics, interesting, and sometimes unusual, but never mundane or mainstream and above all, always good!

Why change things?.....

Good question! why indeed should we change things, given that we were already offering smoked cashew nuts?

The nuts that we previously sold are very good, however, there were a few niggling little issues, that we hoped to improve upon. We would order those nuts online, and because we refuse to carry out any business with Amazon, (both professionally & personally.) the lag phase between placing an order, and taking delivery could quite often be as much as 12 days.

In addition to continuity of supply, on the day that a delivery was due, we would have to watch our front door like a hawk for the six hour delivery slot in case the delivery driver left the package out in full view of the road, in the driving rain, or worse still, Zeus wandered by!*

Add to that the mild annoyance of single use plastic bags of nuts, placed within giant cardboard boxes, food, road miles and all of the other faff, we thought that there must be a better way.

Refill Revolution at The Green Backyard.

Ultimately, the answer proved to be very simple. Bottle & Board now purchases cashew nuts, and chilli rice crackers from Refill Revolution. No extraneous packaging. (We simply take a Kilner jar which is filled directly.) No superfluous, food miles. (We pass by the Green Backyard every day.)

The process. (Sorting, grinding, brining, smoking & Toasting.)

The cashews are sorted out and are then placed in the basic Woodston brine. The brine serves two purposes. It helps to enhance the flavour of the nut, and it helps the smoke to adhere to the cashew`s surface.

Raw cashew nuts, soaking in a basic `Woodston brine.`

After a four hour, brine bath, the nuts are then drained and evenly distributed in Pro Q smoking baskets.

Brined cashew nuts awaiting the smoking cabinet. The cold smoke generator, (top of photo.) is already lit.

Once the cold smoke generator (CRG.) is smouldering nicely the nuts are placed in the cabinet for a four hour cold smoking session.

The cashew nuts receive about four hours, of gentle cold smoking.

After four hours, the baskets are removed from the smoking cabinet, and the nuts are allowed to gently dry out, and the ever so slightly salty, subtly smoked & seriously satisfying flavour is allowed to develop over the next 48 hour, `curing` or `setting` time.

Focus group volunteers wanted:

Half a dozen guinea-pig tasters are needed to join Bottle & Board`s review panel, we would love to get some feedback on this first batch of smoked cashews. If you would like to be considered, for this somewhat daunting, (not to mention monumental task!) then please drop us a line in the comments box below.

The all important, Beer matching!......

C`mon now! Lets be honest. Smoked cashews really do go well with just about any, and all beer styles, however! They are particularly satisfying with stronger, darker more robust types of beer.

*Zeus!......

To be completely fair, and honest, Zeus seems to be somewhat averse to cashew nuts, it is one of the few things that he will not actually eat. On the other hand, on the days that a salami or chorizo delivery is due, I have to sleep on a camp bed in the front garden, just in case of an early delivery!.....

Cheers Chums!