I was at a bit of a loss for some juicy meat to cook after five pounds of carne asada found itself dormant in my freezer due to a scheduling mishap from last week. It was a toss-up whether I was going to make a run to one of the great local meat markets (I recommend Stater Bros or Larios Market in Chino Hills) to pick up a few pounds of worthwhile red meat to cook for myself, or if I should give my buddy Neil a holler to see if he wants to join in the festivities of my foodie lifestyle.
I called Neil to find out if he wanted to stuff his face with some freshly slaughtered beef, or if he wanted to spend the day with his daughter eating animal crackers and Kraft Mac n' Cheese. Neil advised me that he made a run to the local hardware store the previous day and picked up a contraption known to many in the grilling arena as a "smoker."
Now I have heard of a smoker, as many foodies similar to myself have as well. But we have only heard rumors of this double-barreled, wood-chip on the bottom, choo-choo train exhaust stacked monster that takes up a great deal of back yard space. Neil told me he tossed his old propane grill and picked up the smoker---which features a propane grill on the left, and an old-fashioned wood chip smoker on the right---after seeing a great deal on it. I had to make the quick trip down to Costa Mesa to see it for myself.
The smoker is a big boy, there's no doubt about it. If you have a propane grill with four or five burners, add another three feet of girth onto it, and make some extra room in your back yard. But as any foodie knows, the bigger the grill, the better the taste. And for lack of a better way to put it, the bigger the grill, the more meat and veggies you can toss on it to mix and mingle the way you want to grill them. Did I just mentioned veggies? Someone can slap me later for bringing up vegetables in a mans conversation. I apologize in advance to you all.
So back to the smoker, and the best way to describe it. Remember those black oil barrels that all of our parents used to have in the back yard in the 60's and 70's for no apparent reason? The same black barrels that the news networks use for stock footage when describing virtually anything to do with the oil industry? Take two of those, slice them in half lengthwise, stack them on top of each other, and then lay them down on top of a four-foot tall metal cube. Toss a few handles on the top portion of the barrels so you can open the suckers up, put your wifes favorite chrome grills in each of the barrels, and you have a smoker.
Or add a propane element to one of them so you don't have to smoke the daylights out of everything you cook. But that's outside of the scope of our story for today. Back to the smoke.
Neil informed me that he had a five pound bag of wood chips that he was going to toss in the bottom of the smoker, and a giant pork shoulder that he was going to smoke. I read a little bit about smoking when investigating worthwhile ways to cook pork, and I remember that a good smoker will make a delicious meal of pork in about an hour. Neil told me that he was going to light the chips and heat up the smoker, and toss the pork on the grill for a little over an hour. Sounded like a plan to me.
I'm a big fan of traditional barbeques, hence the reason I haven't made the switch to propane yet. The smoker is similar to the old-school barbeque grills that many of us still have (the back-of-the-tailgate Little Smokey's, the Weber grills, etc.) only much larger and with a deeper bed to lay the wood chips. I noticed two exhaust stacks on top of the grill, both of which could be slighly opened or remained closed. Barbeque professionals have told me time after time that only a slight amount of oxygen should be let into a traditional grill to maximize heat and the duration of the cooking. The smoker operates on the same principal by allowing the wood chips to heat and create a giant oven. In other words, the only settings you have are "hot" and "hottest".
About an hour down the road, Neil grabbed the pork off the grill and tossed it onto a serving dish. I could smell it coming before he put it on the table. If there's one thing the smoker does, it definitely adds the distinct smell of smoke to everything within a thirty foot radius. Food, drinks, clothes, just about everything smells like a campfire.
I grabbed the biggest piece cut from the shoulder and sliced it up into bite sized portions. If anyone fails to become a fan of the smoker after taking the first bite, they're simply nuts. Smoking meat, while timely and long on the prep time, helps the meat to retain most of the juices, while also allowing the meat to keep whatever marinades you add to it. In this case Neil had a homemade marinade that he refused to share with me (in case it ended up on my blog). But regardless of the recipe, the smoker made the meat perfect and without an ounce of chewiness or dryness.
If anything, I would venture to say that the smoker creates the perfect slab of pork. I have yet to experiment with it when it comes to a good cut of steak.
So the bottom line---the smoker wins my vote when it comes to worthwhile culinary purchases. I can imagine that it would get costly to pick up a bag of wood chips every time you want to smoke something, and you're going to need plenty of time to let the meat smoke, but if you're looking for taste and satisfaction, I highly recommend it.
