How to Smoke A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO USING A CHARCOAL AND OFFSET SMOKER FOR CREATING DELICIOUS SMOKED FOODS
CHARCOAL SMOKER GETTING STARTED 1 Lighting the charcoal in a charcoal chimney. A charcoal chimney is a metal cylinder that is used to start the charcoal burning before adding it to a grill or smoker. Stuff the chimney from the bottom with 3-4 pages of dry newspaper. Add charcoal to the top. Light the newspaper and let it burn for about 15-20 minutes. Alternatively the charcoal chimney will come with instructions on how to properly use the chimney to get the coals started.
2 Adding hot charcoal to the smoker. Make a thin layer of unlit charcoal or place unlit charcoal around the inside edge of the firebox. Slowly pour the hot charcoal on top of the unlit charcoal or in the middle of the circular ring of unlit charcoal. The unlit charcoal will slowly burn and help maintain an even cooking temperature. 3 Enhance the smoke with wood chunks. Wood chunks and chips are used to give meat greater flavour. Chunks work better because they smoke for longer.
5 Place the food on the grill. If your smoker has more than one grill, put the quicker cooking foods on the top grill. The top grill gets less heat than the lower one. Place the larger pieces of food, or longer cooking foods, on the lower grill. TOP GRILL FURTHER FROM THE HEAT 6 Set the lid on the smoker. Once the lid is on the smoker and by adjusting the vents, it starts to create a flow of air through the smoker.
MAINTAINING THE QUALITY OF SMOKE 1 Open the bottom and top vents. Your smoker will have a lower vent to let fresh air into the chamber and a lid vent to let the spent smoke out. Regulate the temperature with the lower vent, depending on what the smoker requires. If the temperature is becoming low, open up the lower vent. If the temperature is rising too high, close the vent a little but don’t close it completely. The lid (exhaust) vent should always be left open during the cooking process.
3 The more you look, the less you cook. Every time you take the lid off, smoke and heat escapes from the smoker. The best result comes from a smoker with an even, consistent temperature. Only remove the lid if you need to add charcoal or add water to the water pan. If adding charcoal, use the charcoal chimney to quickly pour the unlit charcoal into the firebox whilst you hold the lid in the other hand.
EXPERIMENTING WITH YOUR SMOKER 1 Cook most meats for 4 hours at 105°C. Smoking is not an exact science. The amount of meat you’re cooking, the type of meat, and other factors affect the time it will take to get the perfect cook. Longer times at lower temperatures generally makes the meat more tender. There is a point where you’ve smoked meat for too long. If it cooks so long that it becomes tough all the way through, you’ll realise you’ve cooked it for too long.
OFFSET SMOKER GETTING STARTED 1 Season the Offset smoker. Start by wiping down the entire smoker with soapy water. Rinse the smoker to wash away any dust, grease, or shavings left by the manufacturer. Let the smoker dry off and then spray vegetable oil over the inside of the cooking chamber. Open all of the vents on the smoker and light a fire in the firebox. Burn a fire for 30 minutes with the vents open. Allow to cool then the smoker is ready to use.
2 Using temperature probes in the smoker. The thermometer fitted to your smoker measures the temperature where it is fitted, not the space where the food is smoking. An option is to purchase digital thermometers to monitor the smoking area. Place each thermometer near your food at each end of the cooking chamber for the most accurate readings. Use probes attached to wires if you’d like to be able to move them, or mount the probes onto the grates of the cooking chamber.
5 Spread the coals in the firebox and close the lid. Once the coals are lightly ashy and hot, place them into the firebox. If you want to add flavour to the smoke, include some chunks of hardwood of your choosing. Some options include hickory, apple or maple. Close the lid on the firebox and cooking chamber. Avoid making the fire using only wood because it’s hard to regulate and maintain over a long period of time. 6 Bring the smoker up to temperature.
ADDING FOOD AND ADJUSTING HEAT 1 Arrange your food on the grill. Place food on the racks in the cooking chamber. If you like, put cold meat directly into the smoker without bringing it to room temperature first since it will absorb more smoke when it’s cold. Close the lid of the cooking chamber. 2 Add charcoal to the firebox. If you need to maintain the heat in the smoker or increase the temperature, add unlit charcoal to the firebox.
SMOKING FOODS 1 Add a few wood chunks to the firebox. Place 1 to 2 large chunks of hardwood for smoking into the firebox every hour or so. Set the wood beside the fire, so it smoulders instead of burns quickly. Avoid using wood chips because these will burn off too quickly. Use hardwoods, fruitwoods or nutwoods for best flavoured smoke results. You don’t need to soak the wood since the moisture might cool off the coals in the firebox. 2 Rotate the food once every hour.
