The Economical Art of Smoking Meat

Many people are in to turning back the clock to do things the old way, which I guess releases stress, therefore relaxing.  My wife and kids bought a Weber Smoker for my birthday (a few years ago) so I could enjoy the relaxing pleasures of smoking a chicken or pork butt.  I never had this on my bucket list but it was a well-intentioned gift so who am I to question the reason for their choice.  Later my wife told me she thought about renting a high powered exotic car (Vroom) that I could drive for a couple of hours but she settled on the smoker instead, What?  She said the car ride would be over in a couple of hours and the smoker would bring joy to my life for years, Really?  Now I regularly use a propane grill, I can throw some burgers, chicken or steak on the grill and have a finished product in a reasonable amount of time, very low stress. 

Using a smoker harkens back to a simpler time when the modern advantages of propane and electric starters were not available.  Well as I previously said many people are looking for a piece of that simpler lifestyle.  You have to ask yourself what is the definition of simple, my thoughts lean to something that’s easy to do.

I was told that smoking a chicken was the easiest way to start so with this advice I bought a whole chicken for my 1^st smoking adventure.  The Internet can provide useful information to guide you through a process but they are all opinions which vary greatly so who do you believe.  What charcoal works best, briquettes or lump well the Internet gurus had strong opinions but 180 degrees different from each other.  So this was of no help.  I decided the best charcoal to use was the cheapest, either lump, briquettes or a combination, really how important can it be, it all burns.  One thing the Internet gurus did agree on was do not buy charcoal that is impregnated with lighter fluid.  Apparently it gives the meat a bad taste, but why is it acceptable to use in your regular grill?  I can only guess that people that use grills are not as refined as those that use smokers and cannot recognize bad tasting meat.

After putting the Weber smoker together I used the charcoal chimney to get the charcoal started which was by far the easiest part of this whole task.  Roll some newspaper up and place it in the bottom of the chimney then put the charcoal in the top, light the paper and a few minutes later you have hot flaming coals.  Based on this first step I was feeling pretty confident, I got this, no big deal.  Next I poured the hot coals into the bottom of the smoker, then I put the middle section on, carefully lowered the water pan in, put the top grate on and finally the lid.  I let it heat up before I put the pre-seasoned chicken on the top grill.  I was instructed to use the top grill if I was only cooking one item.  That seemed to make sense so I didn’t bother to ask why.

Once I felt the grill was reasonably hot I put the chicken on and hoped for the best. I went inside to relax when I suddenly realized I didn’t add the wood chips to the fire so I rushed out to load some hickory chips in the fire through the side door of the smoker.  How many wood chips do throw on the coals, I had no idea, so I just shoveled some in until it felt right.  This should have been done immediately after I put the coals in the smoker, but que sera sera . 

The temperature gauge on the smoker showed the smoking range to be 200 to 250 degrees and various Internet sites either agreed or disagreed so again not a lot of help.  Since Weber made the grill and installed the temperature gauge I decided I would use their range.  The instructions I received with the smoker told me a 5lb chicken should take about 6 hours so I proceeded to wait.  During this waiting period I found myself running out constantly to check the temperature and adjust the vents to keep it in the smoking range.  I found I was getting a better cardio workout than at the gym.

I had been using a propane fired grill for many years and not used to restocking the coals to keep the fire going.  So to my surprise I noticed the temperature going down so I would adjust the vents trying to bring the temperature back up which didn’t seem to work.  I then realized that the coals were ashes, so I threw some new charcoal in the smoker hoping there was enough burning embers to start the new coals but No.  So I had to restart the charcoal with the chimney starter and then shovel them into the smoker.  What a pain?

Eventually I was able to keep the temperature in the recommended smoking range and after about 7 hours  (to account for the temperature fluctuation) I removed the chicken and checked the internal temperature, it was done.  To my surprise it was juicy and good but so are the smoked chickens you buy at the grocery stores for about $6.95 however I would have missed the joy of smoking my own chicken. 

Now I needed to clean the chicken juice out of the water pan, that’s pretty disgusting and me carrying a pan full of chicken juice in the kitchen to dump in the sink is a disaster I don’t want to discuss, so I threw the chicken juice in the yard.  I don’t know if that is against code like throwing used oil down the sewer, but that’s what I did.

Next I’m trying a pork butt (Vroom, Vroom) but I decided I would get one of those electronic thermometers to make life easier.