I have been meaning to try it myself for years, you must admit it is intriguing. I have talked about it with friends, read about it on the internet and even watched some TV programs about it, but I have not yet tried it myself.
Overseas it is already an accepting thing, but until recently it was not very popular in this country. However this has slowly been changing and it has become more popular, so I plucked up my courage and decided to give it a shot myself.
Why shouldn’t I? It is my turn now and I want everybody to know all about it. Who knows, maybe one of my readers is also deliberating and I could help them take the plunge?
Whoever thinks I have been talking about smoking weed or pot simply does not know me very well, or maybe has been doing some smoking themselves. The joints I am talking about smoking are joints of meat (and the same goes for cuts – meat/fish only :-)).
The first step was to go out and get myself a smoker, I could have gone to a bar and looked for someone lighting up, but I suspect that would have pointed me in the direction of the other type of smoking. instead, I embarked on an Internet journey after defining my exact needs – a dual purpose device suited for barbecues (Independence day is coming up) as well as smoking, not too large and not expensive. The internet provided me with some useful information but my next call was to an expert who pointed me in the right direction. A compact grill/smoker that a friend of his had recently began importing, which he had fondly nicknamed RD2D.
It arrived in a rather small cardboard box, a neat feat of packaging which I set out to build with my 5 year old who had great fun handling real nuts, bolts and washers.
It cost all of 550 NIS and can be purchased from the following link.
We promptly left our new robot in the middle of the house and went out to enjoy our last day of the Passover holidays before returning to school.
The following day I took the smoker outside and decided to begin with a little chicken, so I hopped over to the local supermarket and bought some coals and chicken thighs (as well as some marshmallows for Independence day). I already had a stock of wood shavings from a tiny smoker I once used to tinker around with.
Important: You can buy wood chips for smoking or use what you find in nature but beware, not all wood is suitable – for example never use conifers, and certainly do not use processed wood that contains chemicals. You do not want to end up with a ghastly flavor or poisoning yourself – so do your homework on this topic!
I placed the chicken thighs in a mix of 2 good barbecue sauces and proceeded to light the coals (approx 1 kg) in the bottom tray.
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It took the smoker a while to reach the required temperature of 105-110°C (225°F) and then it was time to put the bowl of wood shavings in place (there is no point in putting in in place right after lighting the coals as the meat is still in the kitchen and your wood shavings will literally just be going up in smoke), and place the chicken on the top rack.
Now all that was left for me to do was wait and occasionally make sure the temperature did not vary too much. You have limited control over the temperature by controlling the smoke flow out of the lid, and you can add coals via the bottom door if necessary.
Chicken thighs take approx. 2 hours to cook and you can also measure the internal temperature, with a suitable thermometer, which should reach 75°C (165°F).
And here are the beautiful results
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