A Redneck Michigan Smoker in the Hills of Tuscany

[Anomaly]

A redneck Michigan smoker in Tuscany’s hills.

With apologies to: Mark Twain, and Michiganders and rednecks everywhere. And to the forum moderators who will have to (hopefully) read to the end before deciding whether or not to flick this thread…

Forty-three years ago, I was crab fishing in Alaska and in the off-seasons staying a friend’s house. He was from Michigan (the Traverse City area if that makes a difference to this story—read on, it might…). After tanner season, he decided to completely remodel his house. This involved decommissioning the kitchen. For about four months. “Don’t worry” he said. “We’ll just use a barrel smoke like we do back home in Michigan.” For those four months, I cooked every meal on the barrel smoker and/or a Coleman camp stove. Outdoors.

When we bought the little vineyard and olive grove here that keeps us busy (when we were finishing up the olive harvest in November, I said to my wife “you know, all this peasant shit is getting in the way of motorcycle riding”), I noticed a number of rusty 55 gallon drums lying around the property. I immediately started telling my wife “hey, I’m gonna make a barrel smoker like I used in Kodiak.” That was about two years ago and ever since, whenever I see one of the barrels I say “yeah, I gotta make that smoker”—well miracle of miracles, I got around to it a week ago. Took me all of 5 minutes. You too can have one, if you have five minutes. And an old rusty barrel.

Here’s how (you can thank me later):

1)      The barrel should be empty (duh) and either really old and rusty inside or never used to carry anything nasty or toxic. One end should be open.

2)      Cut a small arch/opening at the bottom of the barrel (not the open end)
3)      Place the barrel upright, with the arch you just cut at ground level and dig a little trench/pit in front of the arch



4)      Place a grill inside the barrel, about 1/3 of the way down from the top. I found a grill with sort of an octagon shape that fit perfectly into the first stiffening rib but the usual method is to just pound large nails in from the outside and rest a grill (can come from an old oven grill or a refrigerator grill)



5)      Pay attention here, this step is important. Cut a sheet of roofing metal to fit up against the curve of the barrel. —NO scribing, no cut line. No recuts. In the words of Marlon Brando’s character in The Godfather “act like a man!” Resist the urge to get fancy here. You can ruin the whole thing if you get fussy. Grab that right angle grinder and just cut the damn thing—it’s only a barrel smoker.



condividi le tue foto

6)      Build a fire in the pit-trench you dug in step three. Small twigs/branches work best but you can use any wood available to you. The idea is to have small intense fire that you feed fairly often. Altering the kind of wood can alter the resulting smoke flavor.



7)      Once the fire is established, place the metal sheet you cut (freehand!) in step 5 over the fire and tuck it up against the barrel

8)      Place whatever you are cooking on the grill and cover the barrel with another sheet of (found—don’t you dare BUY something for this step, you can ruin the whole thing here too) over the top of the barrel. A corrugated sheet works best so that it lets the smoke and hot gases out the top (the barrel is acting like a chimney once your fire is going good)



9)      Feed the fire as needed.

You can cook almost anything in the barrel smoker. Chicken, ribs, roasts, fish, and sausages are some examples. If you build a really intense fire and keep it hot, you can cook steaks or hamburgers. In contrast, if you have a very small/week fire you can smoke cheese (gotta be careful with this one…).

To test it out (hey, it had been 43 years, maybe I dreamed the whole thing…), I tried out a whole chicken (butterflied).



45 minutes later, I had this (things come out wonderfully tender and juicy):




OK, now let’s get to the Guzzi content before the moderators have a fit. First, I have a total of $0.00 invested. All parts were found. Stuff tastes better this way. It’s true. OK, maybe I’m exaggerating – I probably used up half a grinder metal cutting disk. So let’s say I have $2.50 into it.

More Guzzi content: we’re off the beaten path that most tourists travel, but if any of you are ever cruising by, stop in—a smoker cooked meal is on us.

Forty-three years. It was worth the wait.

[cliffrod]

Looks great.

Curious about hot vs cold smoking.  Maybe you know (?). It’s my understanding that a smoker like this can be configured with a longer or even underground flue to chill the smoke to the point it only smokes/flavors the product without thermally cooking the product.  Better for cheese and fully cured meats.  Have you done anything like that?

[Anomaly]

Curious about hot vs cold smoking.  Maybe you know (?). It’s my understanding that a smoker like this can be configured with a longer or even underground flue to chill the smoke to the point it only smokes/flavors the product without thermally cooking the product.  Better for cheese and fully cured meats.  Have you done anything like that?

You are exactly right-- the longer you smoke something, the more smoke flavor you get. The way to get long smoke times is to lower the heat applied, to the point of "cold smoking" in the extreme. In reality, it might be more accurate to call the barrel thingy a barbecue rather than a smoker. Except that it does impart a smoke flavor....

Some of the Native Alaskans I've known used a system like you describe with the fire separated at a distance from the smoke house. I haven't experimented with cold smoking. Maybe one day...

Edit to add: and cold smoking also produces a different texture than hot smoking since the item is not "cooked"...

[spmoto]

Great story! Thanks!

[cliffrod]

You are exactly right-- the longer you smoke something, the more smoke flavor you get. The way to get long smoke times is to lower the heat applied, to the point of "cold smoking" in the extreme. In reality, it might be more accurate to call the barrel thingy a barbecue rather than a smoker. Except that it does impart a smoke flavor....

Some of the Native Alaskans I've known used a system like you describe with the fire separated at a distance from the smoke house. I haven't experimented with cold smoking. Maybe one day...

Edit to add: and cold smoking also produces a different texture than hot smoking since the item is not "cooked"...

Thanks.  When I was a culinary apprentice, my chef had a brief but intense enthusiasm for cold smoking.  A neighbor of his had a cold smoker (long buried nearly horizontal flue) cold smoked some gravlax that he (I..) made at work.  We liked the color and firm texture better than typical lox, because it was still more turgid like gravlax.   

I understood the process was more akin to meats hung in rafters above living space, to slowly dry while receiving ample smoke but only nominal heat & certainly not enough to thermally cook it.  Doing the buried flue configuration was a work-around.  Cold smoking has always lingered on my mind.

[Scout63]

Fascinating Seth.  The only problem is that if tried to put that in any yard, let alone the front, Sara would go nuclear.