Here is a fun one I learned in a pinch from Meathead over at
amazingribs.com. After my latest and final Indian Candy Salmon Smoke out I
decided my old Brinkman water smoker was as rusty as the side quarter panel of
84 Dodge K car that’d seen too many Iowa winters. I don’t know if smoking out
of a rusted up smoker is bad for you or not but it seemed pretty gross to me so
out to the dumpster it went. Having some leftover ribs and hankering for a
smoke I found the post from Meathead about how to turn your gas grill into a
smoker. It works!
Here’s what I did:
First off got a large aluminum steam pan from the Smart and
Final, see photo, for the water tray. Got a bread loaf sized aluminum tray for
the wood chips. Found an old top shelf to a broiler pan to use as the rack for
the ribs to sit on. For bigger smokes down the road I can use the rack from my
oven, but since this one was small the broil pan piece worked just fine. Boiled
up my water which I’ve seen some folks on various how to smoke not do and I
think that’s pretty wasteful when the whole idea of the smoker is to have lots
of steam circulating.
I kept the fire pretty low but ran all 3 burners in my
grill. Definitely had some major heat leaks as the lid to my grill didn’t shut
quite properly due to the extra equipment inside. It took a little while to get
to full heat and for the chips to start to smoke. However once things got going
there was plenty of smoke, almost too much as the wood chips eventually cooked
into embers and perhaps could have combusted into a fire. I put some water on
the chips and it killed the glowing embers. Additionally not seeing the smoke
early on I took some of the chips and put them in foil that I wrapped up and
poked some air holes into. This packet was definitely the first to smoke,
eventually I had to had to seal up the foil in an attempt to damper down the
smoldering chips.
All total the ribs took about 3 hours and only got as high
on the temp as 212 Fahrenheit, one hour less than I would leave them on the old
charcoal smoker, they charred up nicely with a good ‘bark’ and had a great
tender consistency, I think that traditional smoker did render a more ‘smoky’
flavor but this was certainly cleaner and easier than setting up the old smoker
and dealing with the all the charcoal. Living in Los Angeles I do think about
all the smoke I’m putting into the air and the implications of burning a bunch
of charcoal. Which leads me to debate what is the next smoker I’m going to
purchase. Converting the grill was fast and easy but there is something to be
said for the process and traditional feel of using charcoal, I mean nothing
kills a Satruday in the fall better than smoking meat and watching college
football on the TV in the backyard, much to my girlfriend’s chagrin.
