The smoking time depends on the thickness of the pieces of meat. Guideline values for ham, bacon and loosened pieces of square are two to three days for cold smoking, eight to twelve hours for hot smoking, and two to three hours for hot smoking.
With cold smoking, one cycle should take about eight hours. Then you remove the smoking material and let the meat rest for twelve hours. You then repeat these steps several times.
After the last pass, the meat has to rest and cool down again. Now you can grab the knife, cut it and look forward to the pleasure.