Hot smoking assessment

How do assessments work?

The assessments include a series of questions which ask you about your shelf life establishment. You will follow through and answer a series of multiple choice questions, with detailed information provided at the end.

All of the advice given has been written by food scientists, and is backed up by published research. You will see links to this research if you wish to know more about any particular issues. You can also find links to published guidance, information and relevant parts of the legislation.

The assessment is anonymous.

Although we will not monitor individual businesses, we will look at the overall results of the assessments across the UK. This will help us to monitor general microbiological risk and give advice to businesses on a UK basis.

Take the assessment

Progress

Core temp. (oC)	Duration (min)	Product	Other considerations	Reference
62	F (calculated): 26 (Actual duration not specified)	Crab meat	Inoculated a single strain of L. monocytogenes at 107 cfu/g. Actual temperature with extrapolated duration from D-values. Study criticism that the crab meat was blended and packed into sausage casing and heat was applied using a hot water bath.	Harrison and Huang (1990)
65	F (calculated): 3.2 (Actual duration not specified)	Crawfish tail meat	Inoculated a two-strain cocktail of L. monocytogenes at just over 103 cfu/g. Actual temperature with extrapolated duration from D-values. Study criticism that the tail meat was previously cooked, frozen, thawed and then used for the experiments.	Dorsa et al. (1993)
62.7	F (calculated): 13.2 (Actual duration not specified)	Lobster	Inoculated a five-strain cocktail of L. monocytogenes at 107 cfu/g. Actual temperature with extrapolated duration from D-values. Study criticism that heat was was applied to pouches of shredded lobster immersed in a hot water bath.	Budo-Amoako et al. (1992)
65	20	Trout	Inoculated single strain of L. monocytogenes at 106 MPN/g. Complete kill observed.	Jemmi and Keusch (1992)
62	18.5	Blended mussels	Inoculated a seven-strain cocktail of L. monocytogenes at 106 cfu/25g mussels, temperature and duration extrapolated from D-values.	Bremer and Osborne (1995)
67.2	Unclear, there was stepwise increase of temperature; higher temperature meant longer duration	Salmon	Inoculated a two-strain cocktail of L. monocytogenes at 330-350 cfu/25g, effective killing at the temperature required exposure to smoke.	Poysky et al. (1997)
>82.8		Salmon	Inoculated a two-strain cocktail of L. monocytogenes at 330-350 cfu/25g, no smoke was required for effective kill at higher temperature.	Poysky et al. (1997)
≤60	85	Mackerel	Natural contamination of 102-104 aerobes/g fish, heat treatment was insufficient to destroy all aerobes.	Kolodziejska et al. (2002)
55	360	Salmon	Inoculated a six-strain cocktail of L. monocytogenes at 106 cfu/g, using 6% salt and 15ppm phenols, the fish were still contaminated with L. monocytogenes.	Hwang et al. (2009)
72	6	Tench	Inoculated a three-strain cocktail of L. innocua as a L. monocytogenes surrogate; inoculated at 105 cfu/g. Complete kill observed.	Branciari et al. (2016)

Glossary of terms

Click or tap on words with dashed underline to learn more.

View the glossary

Congratulations

You have finished your assessment. Scroll down to view your results and to find additional support and resources.

Your Assessment report

Date completed: 1 October 2025

Follows best practice

of your responses are in this category. This means that you follow good food safety practices. More information can be found in the feedback for each question.

Consider reviewing

of your responses are in this category. This means that you should consider taking action to improve your food safety practices. Suggestions for how you can improve are included in the feedback for each question. Best practice should always be sought, however it is recognised that some changes to practices may not be actionable.

Not legal

of your responses are in this category. This means that you must take action as soon as possible to improve your food safety practices. Suggestions for how you can improve are included in the feedback for each question.

Your responses

All of your assessment responses are below with explanations of risk level and how you can take action to improve your food safety practices.

Contents

Based on your responses, there are the areas where you have the highest microbiological risk. You should strongly consider implementing new measures to decrease your risk.

Based on your responses, there are the areas where you should consider reviewing best practices. You should strongly consider implementing new measures to decrease your risk.

View all resources