Smoking

This last Wednesday I smoked a 14 pound turkey which turned out really good. It took eight hours and I didn't have enough charcoal. So I used some willow wood from a tree here at home. Willow make a huge amount of smoke! I must say that you can slow cook great food with with or without smoke. I won't use willow again though. The meat had a little too much smoke flavor.

Back in August I mentioned I was making some upgrades to my charcoal smoker-grill. It had some minor issues that were developing and some inadequacies that needed to be addressed.

The wooden tray on the front wasn’t deep enough to hold anything but tools. It was also getting kind of flimsy. There was also an 1/8” gap all the way around the fire door which allows a lot of room for air intake. Heat control was difficult at best because the adjustable vent on the door did not control all of the air intake.I decided to amend the airflow situation. The fix was accomplished by cutting up some gutter from the scrap pile and riveting it to the door on the fire box. I was originally going to cover all four edges with metal fins. However, the day I was working on it was also BBQ night, and I only had time to get two pieces on. It turns out that the additional metal made quite a difference. I can adjust the vent as little as an 1/8” and see a thermometer move shortly thereafter. More air means hotter, less air is cooler. So with the successful change I was stoked!

Some time later I attacked the front tray. I replaced the three boards on the front with a piece of 1/2” plywood. I

cut some metal brackets from some scrap and attached those from the front of the new tray down to the front of the legs. This forms a triangle, the most stable geometric shape, transferring the weight of the tray and its load to the legs below, instead of hinging at the back edge (falling). On top of the plywood tray I applied some thinset and screwed down

some 1/4” Hardibacker. Next, I applied more thinset and placed six 6” x 12” tile cut-offs. The tray surface is now at the same level as the front of the main opening so there is no metal in the

way when I am set a plate down. The finished tray is now 12” by 36”, more than three inches deeper and big enough and sturdy enough to hold half a pig, if I had half a pig.

The thermometers on the grill are the first upgrade I made in June 2007. The left one is on the firebox. The right is on the grill box. I can cook in both boxes but when smoking meat, the meat goes in the grill box which stays between 200 and 250 degrees.