One culinary interest I can firmly place blame on Alton Brown for causing is my fasination with smoking meats. Ever since that first episode, "Where's There's Fish, There's Smoke," when AB explained the process and demostrated how simple it truly is, I've been a die-hard smoking fantanic.
In the fall, I built a smoker similar to AB's Army surplus version from last year's Opryland and later "Once and Future Fish" episode. I have a big post planned on that showing the construction. But until then, let's have a blast from the past and revisit the very first (albeit odd) smoker AB showed us:
The Good Eats Custom Corrugated Vapor Colloid Applicator
(Cardboard Box Smoker)
a) heavy-duty corrugated box (no interior painting)
b) flap door
c) electric hot plate
d) small cast-iron skillet with hardwood sawdust (no pressure-treated wood or plywood allowed)
f) small battery-operated fan (optional)
g) 2 quarter-inch wooden dowels inserted through box in parallel fashion
h) oven rack
i) target food (fish skin-side down)
j) thermometers (although probe styles are shown, standard stem models may be used in a pinch)
k) thermometer probes (one in the box, the other in the fish)
4 comments:
This is where I have to disagree with Alton. Of course, I'm from Texas, so we take our smoking a little more serious.
What he likes is cute, but smokin' art around here involves pipeline cut to an appropriate length, a firebox separate from the smoking/cooking chamber, a stack adequate to ventilate the sucker, and real nut- or fruit-wood, well, logs!
If I modify this one, it'll get gas for heat, and a way to burn, well, logs. There's no real substitution.
I really wish AB would look at what can be done in a long horizontal black-body smoker (or even a tall, large diameter vertical smoker; a hybrid of the two will grace my yard when we move and I have to rebuild) with real wood. It is a different world.
For what it's worth, I can smoke cheddar and fish on a hot summer's day with coal remnants and no fire in my smoker. Internal temperatures get to 150-160 easily.
For ribs and brisket (225-250F) I have to start the smoke with kendling and tender and keep the temps up with a 4" diameter, 22" long piece of hickory, restoked about every 2 hours. That's not too much more often than one would do with a commercial gas pit.
The key is to have adequate thermal mass so that once thermal inertia is achieved, one can get the temperature to a target and maintain it with little additional fuel.
Sorta like the various dutch oven episodes.
Love this episode. I am almost done building a smoker make of wooden wine boxes
http://peikescookbook.blogspot.com/
i have made a cardboard box smoker
double layered. I use a charcoal
hibaci for heat. I have no problem
getting 225 - 250 degrees. Yesterday i smoked 4 racks of ribs and 2 pork loins. Pork loins done just around two hours and i finished the ribs at about 5 1/2 hours. Came out very well with with one hibaci fill with charcoal and one handful at 3 hour mark. Somewhere between 2 and 4 lbs of charcoal.
it all came out perfect
check out this cardboard box smoker
http://s870.photobucket.com/albums/ab269/mojoek/Smoked%20Chili%20Cheese%20Dog/
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