Now We're Smokin'!

Woo-hoo! NOW We're smokin'!

Let me explain.

A few weeks ago, I saw a repeat episode of Alton Brown's "Good Eats" program on the Food Channel. I remember, the first time I saw it, making a mental note that I'd like to do something about what I saw on that episode.

So when I saw the repeat episode recently, I figured it was time to get busy and do something about it.

The episode was about smoking food, mostly meat, of course, in a homemade smoker grill.

Let me give you a quick rundown on his homemade contraption. I'm sure you could look up the episode online and watch the whole thing if you wanted to. (A good place to start might be here.)

Alton Brown's Homemade Smoker-Grill Contraption. Alton starts with two 18" pieces of pottery - a standard, regularly-shaped red clay flowerpot, and a planter bowl of the same diameter and the same material. Each of them has the standard hole in the bottom for drainage. He put the flowerpot onto three chunks of 2x4 lumber, to elevate it off the ground. Into the bottom of the flowerpot, he put a single burner hotplate, running the cord out the drainage hole. On top of the hotplate, he put an aluminum cakepan, into which he put the wood chunks that produced the smoke. Next, he put into the top of the flowerpot a 16" (maybe it was 17"?) standard round grill. Because of its diameter, it wedged nicely near the top of the flowerpot. This, of course, is where the meat-to-be-smoked will be placed. Then he inverted the bowl on top of the flowerpot as a lid, placing a cooking thermometer into the drainage hole of the lid.

Alton has a whole list of reasons why this setup is better than trying to smoke meats on your backyard grill, including the fact that the pottery of the unit will retain the heat better and make for a more even cooking process.

There were two things about his contraption that appealed to me. First was the electric hotplate, and second was when Alton said he put his entire contraption together for about $54.

I already know I really like smoked meat, especially the properly-done variety.

In about 1983 (maybe 1984?), we I went to the County Line Restaurant on highway 1604 in San Antonio, Texas, while I was there for the Air Force. They had some of the best hickory-smoked beef (yes, BEEF) ribs I'd ever had, and I asked them how they did it. They told me they smoked their ribs over green hickory logs in a big concrete pit, for 18 to 21 hours every day.

So I decided to try it, and a few years later, I spent all day (as I was working in the yard that day) smoking some ribs in my Weber kettle.

This worked fine, but it was enough of an effort that I didn't do it again for quite a while.

Now, living in Madison, MS, I've developed a bit of an easier way to smoke meats in my Weber kettle.

In case you haven't figured this by now, I really like that Weber kettle. It's very difficult to burn something in it, and most things cook very evenly.

I also have a Weber accessory that holds the charcoal together in about a 4" by 8" area, and I've found that I can keep a low charcoal fire going all day by adding three briquets about every 45 minutes.

When I smoke meats, whenever I add new charcoal, I also add a few more chunks of (store-bought) hickory wood. With the fire contained in the accessory and most of the meat on the other side of the grill, it cooks very evenly and smokes evenly as well.

I found out the hard way not to open the lid until the smoke stops coming out. The first time I tried smoking food with the store-bought hickory chunks, I thought I'd open the lid to see how long before I'd have to add more wood. As soon as the fresh oxygen hit the smoldering (smoking) wood chunks, they burst into flame, and there was nothing I could do to put them out.

I wound up having to let them burn themselves out, then added more wood. And the meat I was smoking got a bit overscorched, too.

So now I know, when smoking meats in the Weber kettle, add the new charcoal, add the wood, then immediately put the lid back on and do NOT open it until it stops smoking.

So I was pretty happy with the smoking capabilities of the Weber kettle, and wasn't too sure I wanted anything different.

But Alton Brown's contraption was intriguing, and looked like it would do a pretty good job. Beside, Alton is an expert, right? Besides having gone to cooking school (and acting school - did you know that?), he's also got a whole staff of people to do his research and testing and run his fetchit errands.

So I decided I'd try to build one of Alton's contraptions, and just see how it worked.

I started by trying to find the pottery.

Lowe's didn't have it. Wal Mart didn't have it. Home Depot didn't have it. They all had similar things, but nothing in the right size.

About this time, I was telling my son Chad about this, and he told me about another unit he liked at Lowe's, a CharGriller (r) gas grill with an external firebox. This would allow the smoker fire to be built outside the area where the food was being cooked.

That all sounded great, but was priced somewhat steeply at about $300.

So I continued to look for the parts to build Alton's contraption.

Eventually, I found them at a local nursery and garden store, but when I went to buy them, I got a shock. The two pots would have cost over $60. Add that to the price I expected to pay for the hotplate, the aluminum wood pan, the grill, and the thermometer, and you are already well over $100, or twice what Alton said he spent. And even if I could find all the right pieces and put it together and it worked, I'd still have a, well, a contraption, a home-made, jury-rigged contrivance.

There were two things about smoking meats in the Weber kettle that made it something of a hassle, and these two things are the reason I haven't used it more than I have. The first thing is that it's hard to get to the fire, because it's underneath the grill where the meat is being cooked. I need to get to the fire to add charcoal and wood chunks periodically. The other thing is the hassle of tending the fire. First I have to build the fire, get it going well, then I have to tend it, then I have to clean up after it. Not a bad hassle, but a hassle anyway, just enough to make me somewhat reluctant to do this often. Alton's contraption would at least take care of this second concern, because of the electric hotplate.

As we were discussing whether it was worth it to spend this much money on this kind of contrivance, Jan suggested that Lowe's might have a Char Griller unit similar to the one Chad liked, only without the gas capability.

So we looked, and indeed they had it, for just over $100. (The external firebox was extra.) So we bought it. Here's a picture of what it looks like. You can see the smaller cylinder hanging off the right side, that's the firebox.

They offered to put it together for free, which was good, and the delay was fine, too, because no way would that thing fit into my Murano. A few days later, my friend Mike helped me bring it home in his pickup truck.

Then later, he helped me find a suitable single-burner electric hotplate in the big Ace Hardware in Clinton. It was just under $20, which is right about what I expected to pay for it.

Add that to a $4 cake pan from Wal Mart to hold the wood chunks, and I was ready to go!

Well, almost.

It turns out the new smoker grill has cast iron grilling grates. If you know anything about cast iron, you know it needs to be seasoned before you should use it.

The instructions said to coat the grates with vegetable oil, preferably bacon grease ... (Say WHAT? Vegetable oil, preferably BACON grease? Okay, whatever you say) ... and put it in the grill and heat it to 300° for three hours, then recoat and cook at 200° for another hour. Okaaayyy...

I picked up the grates and got some sort of goo all over my hands. They were coated with something, obviously to protect them during shipping, but the goo HAD to go before I could season the grates.

I tried wiping them, no go. The owner's manual said it was a wax for shipping and I should heat the grates until the wax melted off. I tried that in my oven, but it only hardened the wax. Hmm. What to do, what to do?

A light bulb came on over my head, and I finally just put the grates into my oven and ran it through a self-clean cycle. Presto. Problem solved. The goo on the grates became a rust-colored powder, which washed off just fine with soap and water.

Yes, I know, I know. We're not supposed to wash cast iron with soap and water, but since I was going to season them immediately anyway, I didn't think it would matter.

And so it didn't. I ran the grates through the seasoning process in the kitchen oven, and they came out just fine.

At last, it was time to cook!

The first thing we tried in the new smoker grill was pork ribs, bought on sale at Kroger because it was close to their expiration date.

Suddenly, I became aware that with the hotplate in the firebox outside the chamber where the meat was to cook, it probably wouldn't produce enough heat t cookit properly, even with sufficient smoking, especially pork.

So I pre-cooked the ribs.

I wrapped them tightly in heavy duty foil and put them in a 205° oven for four hours, then upped the temp to 225° for one more hour. That took care of any cooking needs, while keeping all the moisture in the meat.

The ribs went into the fridge overnight, then I smoked them on the grill later.

On smoking day, I put the hotplate in the external firebox. I put the cake pan on top of that, put wood chunks in the cake pan, and turned the hotplate up to max. The ribs went into the cooking chamber. I waited about ten minutes, then checked, and smoke was absolutely pouring out the chimney tube. Success!

I thought maybe the hotplate was set at too high a temperature, so I cut it down to half heat, but ten minutes later the smoke had almost stopped, so I turned it back up to just short of the highest setting. And that's where I left it.

I added new wood chunks about every 45 minutes, and did this for four rounds of additions. After the third round, I opened the cooking chamber and poked the ribs - I wanted to be sure I wasn't drying them out. Since they were already fully cooked, I didn't worry about that, but I wanted them to absorb enough smoke flavor without getting too dry.

I discovered the smoke had mostly adhered to the top and sides, and very little on the bottom, so I flipped them over and ran one more round of smoking, then took them off the grill.

They were delicious.

And the hassle factor was extremely low, which means I'll probably be doing a lot more smoking on this smoker grill.

Anyone interested in stopping by for some smoked chicken?

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UPDATE - October 3: Today, we smoked some chicken. As I have been known to say, I have just two words to describe how it turned out, and they're both "Yum."

Yes, I pre-cooked the chicken, wrapped tight in heavy-duty foil, in a 200° oven, for five hours. This time, I learned from prior oopses and put a baking pan under the foil package. Sure enough, as securely as I thought I had sealed that foil package, it still leaked juice. At least this time, all I had to clean up was the baking sheet!

We smoked ten chicken thighs and ten (I think) breast tenderloins for four rounds of smoking. Remember, a round is about 45 minutes, or about as long as it takes for the wood chunks to be consumed and quit smoking.

We took the breast tenderloins out after three rounds and left the thighs in for one additional round.

What I discovered is that the meat closest to the external firebox cooks more.

Imagine that.

So the next time I smoke meat on our new smoker grill, I'm going to rotate which meat is closest to the firebox with each round.

That way, I can be sure each piece of meat will be cooked equally.

There was plenty of chicken, and we have plenty left over. Anybody hungry?

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