Authentic Cooking Experiment: Smoked Pork

After reading Alton Brown's episode in season 7 where he built a smoker from two terra cotta pots I was inspired and curious to try it out. It seemed not only the coolest thing but also a very useful culinary appliance to have around the kitchen. So despite the fact that it's January and the dead middle of winter I decided to commit my weekend for this project. Luckily my husband was extremely supportive and on board with my crazy idea. Finding the parts was actually relatively easy:

- 2 terra cotta pots (one 14" deep, one shallow and round)
- one hot plate
- one pie pan
- wood chips
- grill grate (make sure it fits snuggly in the pot)
- 3 bricks
- stem style thermometer

The pots, brick and wood chip I found at home depot. As for the other parts they are easily found in your local hardware or kitchen appliance stores. The only tricky part of the assembly was the hot plate which wasn't clearly addressed in the book. Due to the safety mechanism of the hot plate it will shut off automatically when over heated. Thus it is impossible to simply place the whole to plate in the pot, not to mention the temperature knob would be unreachable. Hence the hot plate must be unassembled first so that the top and bottom covers are removed. Then simply place the plate inside the pot sticking the cords through the hole on the bottom.


Next place the wood chips in the pie pan on top of the plate, and top off with the grill grate. Finally place the whole pot on three bricks formed into a triangle so the air can flow through from the bottom.


To test this smoker we decided to make pull pork, which was first brined for 12 hrs in a molasses, salt mixture. Next a spice rub is placed on the meat before placing it into the smoker for 3 hrs at a temperature of 210 degrees.


This is not meant to fully cook the meat but just provide enough of a smoky flavor that is authentic to real BBQ. To finish off the pork, it is placed in a 300 degrees oven for 2 hrs or until tender with an internal temp of 180. The finished dish was moist and tender and broke apart easily when pulled. We topped it with some homemade BBQ sauce and it was definitely good eating!


Ok now for the critical part, which as far as I'm concern is present in all dishes... For this dish the minor flaw laid in the smoker, which was a little hard to keep at the consistent temperature of 210. In the future I think the issue could be fixed with a PID controller, but that is another blog all together as this weekend of culinary adventures comes to a conclusion.