HUN Chapter 54: Meat Curtain and Wood Shed

Next, Lin Yu'an installed steel fishing lines horizontally and parallel to each other inside the smokehouse, serving as crossbeams for hanging the meat strips, ensuring they could support the weight of dozens of kilograms of venison.

Finally came the roof. He first used several thinner wooden poles to build at a smaller incline angle, extending from one side wall of the smokehouse to the top of the opposite wall, forming the rafter framework for the roof.

Then on top of the rafters, he first laid a layer of previously collected birch bark, then covered it with a large amount of moss. He deliberately left some narrow gaps as channels for smoke to escape.

With the smokehouse ready, Lin Yu'an returned to his shelter to prepare for the pre-smoking work.

"Before smoking, the venison needs to be cut into long strips or thin slices, which makes it easier to smoke thoroughly."

He picked up a piece of deer hindquarter meat, the sharp multi-tool moving nimbly in his hands. Following the natural grain of the muscle, he divided the thick venison into strips about five to ten centimeters wide and of varying lengths.

He cut very carefully, ensuring each cut maintained uniform thickness of the meat strips to guarantee consistent heating and dehydration during the smoking process.

When all the venison had been cut and processed, Lin Yu'an began hanging them on the steel wire crossbeams inside the smokehouse.

Soon, the interior of the smokehouse was filled with densely packed meat strips, pink and dark red pieces of meat hanging in alternating patterns. Under the dim light filtering through the roof gaps, they formed quite a spectacular "meat curtain."

He deliberately adjusted the spacing between meat strips, ensuring at least gaps remained between them so smoke could circulate fully and evenly wrap around each piece of meat during smoking.

"All the venison has been 'put on the rack,' smoking can begin!"

"The key to smoking lies in the 'smoke' rather than the 'fire,' what's needed is a large amount of continuous dense smoke."

Lin Yu'an used several stones to simply encircle a fire-safe area about half a meter in diameter on the ground in the center of the smokehouse. First, he started a small pile of open flame using dry kindling and reed flowers.

Once the fire was stable, he began adding charcoal in a semi-burning state and covered it with a large amount of slightly damp pine needles and moss.

These damp materials would not burn vigorously under the charcoal fire's heat, but would smolder slowly, producing large amounts of rich, lasting white smoke and emitting a unique fragrance mixed with pine resin and needle scents.

Soon, the entire interior of the smokehouse was completely enveloped in milky white dense smoke.

"The smoking process usually needs to continue for several days, with specific timing depending on the size of the meat pieces, smoking intensity, and desired preservation effect."

"But I don't need such dry jerky. At the current temperature, semi-dried jerky will be sufficient to prevent spoilage."

He gently closed the simple wooden stake door of the smokehouse, leaving only a tiny gap to observe the interior conditions. Then he stepped aside, quietly guarding this "gourmet factory" that was carrying out its smoking project.

Time came to the forty-eighth day.

Since yesterday evening, Lin Yu'an's attention had been almost completely occupied by this smokehouse. Every one to two hours, he would walk out of his shelter to carefully check the charcoal and smoke density inside the smokehouse, constantly watching whether the pile of smoldering smoking materials needed some fresh damp pine needles added.

To guard against nocturnal predators that might be attracted by the meat's aroma, he tied several thin fishing lines taken from his tackle bag on several necessary paths around the smokehouse, with the other ends of the lines connected to small bait bells.

Any unwelcome intruder would trigger a crisp warning sound.

Fortunately, the bait bells remained silent throughout the night.

Lin Yu'an had slept fitfully for a few hours last night and felt reasonably energetic this morning. The first thing he did upon waking was to get up and walk quickly toward the smokehouse.

As he approached, a more intense meat aroma mixed with pine resin smoke hit him in the face.

He pushed open the simple door made of thin wooden stakes.

Inside, smoke still lingered, and those hanging venison strips, after a night of smoking, had visibly shrunk on the surface. Their color had also changed from the previous bright red to an appetizing, glossy dark reddish-brown.

"Hmm, the smoking progress is better than expected."

Lin Yu'an murmured quietly, then added some fresh smoking materials to the smoking fire pile, ensuring smoke could continue throughout the day.

Returning to the stone house, he rekindled the stove fire. He placed the pan-fried deer tenderloin he had deliberately saved from last night in the stainless steel pot to heat.

The fat quickly melted under high temperature, making a soft "sizzling" sound. Still paired with a cup of hot tea brewed from freshly picked pine needles, this became the energizing start to his forty-eighth day.

"Guys, the venison still needs continuous smoking, but I can't spend all day guarding here doing nothing else."

Lin Yu'an said to the camera while enjoying the delicious pan-fried venison.

"The firewood piled outside the shelter is also accumulating more and more. I've decided to build a storage shed for them today to prevent them from getting wet from rain and snow."

"Winter is approaching, and I need to stockpile enormous amounts of dry wood to get through safely."

"If this firewood is just left in the open, once it encounters continuous rain and snow, it easily gets damp, affecting burning efficiency."

"So a wood shed that can shelter from wind and rain becomes very necessary. It doesn't need to be too complex, the key is having a roof."

"The important thing is being able to monitor the smokehouse dynamics while working, preventing any 'home invasion.'"

For the wood shed location, he chose the side-rear of the stone house shelter, adjacent to the stone wall. This would both utilize the stone wall as a natural barrier and facilitate daily access.

From some spruce logs left over from building the smokehouse earlier, he selected two wooden poles about two and a half meters long as the main load-bearing pillars for the front side of the wood shed.

Using the logging axe, he shaped the bottom end of each pillar into a sharp wedge shape. Then, he aimed the sharp bottom ends at holes dug in the ground and used the axe back to forcefully drive them into the relatively soft soil.

"Thud! Thud! Thud!" The dull impact sounds rang out.

For each pillar, he repeatedly adjusted the angle and used his feet to firmly stamp down the soil around the pillars to secure them.

After these two tall pillars were firmly established, he began building the roof framework.

He selected a pine pole longer than the expected width of the wood shed as the front crossbeam connecting the two tall pillars.

He cut grooves at the inner top ends of both pillars and at the corresponding contact positions on both ends of the crossbeam.

He placed this front crossbeam steadily in the grooves at the tops of the two tall pillars, then used willow bark rope in a cross-binding pattern to tightly bind and reinforce the connection points between the crossbeam and pillars.

He then found several relatively thinner branches to serve as rafters. He placed one end of these rafters at regular intervals on the front crossbeam that had just been secured, binding them in place with willow bark rope.

The other ends of the rafters naturally sloped backward and downward, thus forming a distinct single-slope roof skeleton.

"The key to the roof is preventing rain and snow, so it must have sufficient slope for rain and snow to slide off smoothly."

Finally came laying the roof materials. He didn't choose birch bark but decided to make full use of the abundant reed resources nearby.

He went again to the lakeside or shallow stream areas to quickly collect large amounts of reeds that had already turned yellow and dried.

He laid these reeds bundle by bundle, starting from the low part of the roof, layer upon layer, densely on the slanted rafters.

He laid them very thickly, several centimeters thick, and used willow bark rope to secure them to the rafters below to prevent them from being scattered by strong winds.

The structure of this wood shed was extremely simple: the front supported by two tall pillars holding up a slanted reed roof, the back directly touching the ground or resting on short wood, with both sides completely open for convenient firewood access.

Although it had virtually no proper walls, its floor area was considerable, sufficient to accommodate the firewood he would need for the coming weeks or even longer periods, and it could effectively protect them from rain and snow attacks from above.

Later, if needed, he could also consider using branches to build enclosing branch walls on both sides of the wood shed.

"Alright, guys, my simple wood shed is complete! Though crude, having a roof for shelter from wind and rain is sufficient."

Building this simple wood shed also took up almost his entire day.

When the sun in the west began to sink into the mountain silhouettes, Lin Yu'an finally completed all his labor and neatly stacked the portion of dry wood he had already collected under the newly completed wood shed.

Night fell again, and the stove inside the stone house was rekindled, radiating warm comfort.

Lin Yu'an continued to place the remaining pan-fried deer tenderloin on the hot stone slab at the stove opening to heat briefly.

Paired with several pieces of roasted wild onions, this became his dinner after today's hard work.

After the meal, he didn't rest immediately but came again to the smokehouse to carefully check the condition of the smoking fire pile, adding some fresh charcoal and damp pine needles.

After confirming everything was in order, Lin Yu'an returned to the warm stone house shelter, preparing to welcome another unknown night by Chilko Lake.

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