Instant Smoked food spoilage

[Von Strangle]

I'm sure I'm missing something here. But I've been smoking my meats to get prepped for winter, but the second they are ready, three quarters of it is already spoiled. What am I missing or doing wrong?

[Sami of Enormous Elk]

Now (since just released version 3.63) you need to maintain the temperature of your smoking cabin through the whole process. So it requires daily warming up of the fireplace. If maintaining the temperature fails some of the meat may spoil.

From version 3.63 changelog:

 - added: smoking requires continuous maintaining of fire

          In the previous versions smoking succeeded if the room was heated once, and the process required no further maintenance. Now the heating must be maintained through the whole process.
          It's not critical to maintain an exact temperature but the fireplace in your smoking cabin should be warmed up properly on daily basis. Should you forget it one day it's still possible to compensate by heating it up even more the next day. 
          If the heating is completely neglected you will find your smoked foodstuff all spoiled. If the heating has failed only to some extent you may find some of the smoked foods spoiled. 

[Von Strangle]

Awesome thanks, the guides i've read are a bit outdated. Do i just need to have a fire on once a day, even if just for a bit?

[Sami of Enormous Elk]

Once a day is good average, and that should do it, just have the fire burning for an hour or two at least. Or you can also warm it every other day for a longer time. It's not all too picky system, but continuous maintaining is needed.

[shaihulud]

Originally posted by Enormous Elk:

Once a day is good average, and that should do it, just have the fire burning for an hour or two at least. Or you can also warm it every other day for a longer time. It's not all too picky system, but continuous maintaining is needed.

Can you suggest how many firewood/branches to use to achieve the necessary degree of warmth? Is the base 16 branches/4 firewood needed for starting a furnace sufficient?

[Sami of Enormous Elk]

Originally posted by shaihulud:

Can you suggest how many firewood/branches to use to achieve the necessary degree of warmth? Is the base 16 branches/4 firewood needed for starting a furnace sufficient?

There are no exact numbers in my head but I'd say it's more like dozen firewood needed.
You can always look at the fire and it's told for how long it will burn, a few hours is what you want.

[The_bayonet]

any chance of a similar system for drying meat? Right now you can dry them in the middle of a rain shower as long as the season is right and leave them drying in the middle of the wilderness without worrying about animals eating them.

[Sami of Enormous Elk]

Yes we could improve drying, and salting as well. With drying it's imagined that the foodstuff is assembled on the wall so that the rain doesn't actually catch it, but in the game the placement indeed isn't considered all that carefully.

[fabio.ticconi]

For drying, I think the more interesting improvement could be using actual weather rather than a fixed start/end date (same for agriculture, incidentally). That would also work nicely when tied to the Weatherlore skill.