The longer I live in Kansas City, the more of a barbecue enthusiast I become. I’ve always owned a charcoal grill and, the past few years, have been learning to slow cook meat. One of the challenges of slow cooking is managing the temperature. The grill works fine, but the working the fire takes a lot of attention. I have been looking at various smokers and noticed a pretty-cool alternative called The Smokenator. Being a hardcore do-it-yourselfer, I decided to see what I could come up with.
The smoke box is built from a modified 11-inch stainless steel stock pot and a foil mini-loaf pan. The pot was one of those cheap, soup scorchers not really made for cooking. After a couple sweaty hours wrestling with tin snips, sharp edges, and a dremel tool, I had a shiny new smoke box.
A couple of days ago, I fired up a dry run. I filled it nearly full of coals and added ten lit coals. The thing was running at 300 degrees for the first hour, so I nearly closed the bottom vents of the Weber. The temperature dropped to 230 degrees and remained there. I had the top vents completely open the entire time. It ran another 4 hours before I shut it down. During that time, I added water twice and no coals. The following morning, a couple of inches of coals remained.
I can’t wait to start a feast. There is enough room for a turkey on the bottom/coals rack or several slabs of ribs and a couple of pork butts if I use both racks.
Want one for yourself? Start with the Template PDF file and make one. If you do, let me know how it turns out.
(I’ll be smoking soon and will update with some food pictures.)