Some of the links on this forum allow SMF, at no cost to you, to earn a small commission when you click through and make a purchase. Let me know if you have any questions about this.
I've been gathering components for a few days now and have just about everything to build my Lil' Smokey. One question I have is about the charcoal ring. Is it absolutely necessary? I am of course on a short timeline as we're leaving in the morning for our annual camping trip. If I can get by without the ring it would save me some time, but if the thing won't work without it I can probably do it. I was planing to do an overnight butt smoke and would like to get a little sleep. Do you think I can get 5-6 hours out of it without a coal ring?
I'll post some pics later this morning. Thanks in advance for any and all advice!!
You want a good pile of coals lit from the top to have a good long burn time. how about a large can with holes punched or drilled in it fir now, like a coal starter? It could be a quick temporary to get you going for now.
I am very interested in this build. I think a smoky joe converted to a smoky mountain would be great for camping. I love experimenting with equipment.
I have an old stainless pot I might sacrifice for this. It's the same diameter of the coal grate, and if I cut the bottom off and drill a bunch of holes in it it might just work. I may also bite the bullet and get a sheet of expanded metal grate to make a ring. I just don't have much time or $$ to spare right now. I also have the insert from a pasta pot, basically a stainless colander, that's a little smaller, but might also work. The downside to that is my wife might get a little (lot) fussy if it suddenly disappeared. Plus, I'm not sure it'd hold enough charcoal. I'm thinking it should be ok without a ring, but I don't wanna get to the campsite THEN discover it won't work.
In a pinch you can cut your smokeing wood act like a fire ring. I have done this many times to get some rest. Just cut your logs to fit snug on 2 sides with a 4" to 6" gap between the logs fill between the logs with charcoal. Make sure to leave enough room on one end for your chimney of hot coals.Thumbs Up On a small unit like yours you may have to put the coals on the outsides. The trick is. Leave a space on the inside or the out for air flow.
That's a great idea! Unfortunately I will likely be using chunks instead of logs. I did just come up with what may be a solution. I discovered we have several wire cooling racks (the kind you put cookies on when they come out of the oven). I believe I can cut them in half lengthwise and bend to form a ring, wiring them together and to the grate. The racks are 14x9, so that would give me 24x4.5, or 36x4.5 if I use 1 and a half of them. I just did a quick measurement around the grate, and I think it's around 36" in circumference. I'll update with pics as soon as I get done with the client I'm (supposed to be) finishing up this morning.
Well, the camping trip is done. We ended up coming home a day early due to chilly temps, rain, and a statewide ban on open fires in Delaware due to recent windy and dry conditions. Ironic, huh? Thankfully they did allow controlled charcoal fires, so we were able to use the mini WSM. One of the guys had a family emergency, so it was just 2 of us. I still think my wife was more excited than I was about me going away for a few days :)
We took off Thursday after assembling the jigsaw puzzle that is a tiny 2 seater and a whole bunch of camping gear.
Here's my buddy Blind Willie O'Shea getting ready to leave. He's neither blind nor actually named Willie O'Shea, but for 30 years or so that's been his nickname. Don't ask me why.
The first night we got a late start on dinner, so got a whole chicken cut into parts to make Peruvian style. Marinated it on olive oil, vinegar, cumin, garlic, paprika and some Tony Chachare’s salt free seasoning to give it a little heat. While it was marinating, I fired up the mini with a whole chimney full of Stubb’s natural briqs dumped in the basket on top of about a cup of cherry chips. Would have liked chunks, but that’s all I could find. For the charcoal basket I ended up going with the stainless colander. It worked well, but I still wanna make the expanded steel basket for better ash management. I also got the terra cotta saucer as a heat sink, but for this first cook left it out to let it get in the 350˚-400˚ range. It easily settled in around 380˚ A little over an hour and the largest piece hit 165˚, and I pulled it all off to let it rest. WOW!! It was incredibly tender, moist and juicy, with just a nice hint of smokiness. Only complaint is that the skin, while very tender and not rubbery, was not crispy. Maybe this is due to the wet marinade, but next time I’ll just pull the pot off the smoker and put the grate over the coals to to crisp the skin. All in all, I’d give this inaugural cook on the mini a 9. Sorry no pics, but it was late and we were hungry.
The next night was ribs. All i could find was a rack of enhanced St. Louis ribs. They were expensive and not trimmed well at all, but we made the best of it.
Rubbed them down with my basic rub (turbinado, garlic, paprika, cumin, ginger, salt, pepper and some red pepper) while we fired up the mini.
Amazingly, the previous night’s cook had used hardly any of the basket of coals. Seriously, maybe 10%. So I added more chips and set up for the Minion method. Fired up 15 briqs and dumped on top of the left over coals. After maybe 20-25 minutes the mini hit 200˚, so I dialed back on the vents. A few minutes later, it locked in on 225˚, and for the next several hours it varied little more than 7˚ degrees in either direction, except for one little spike to 261˚, which was easily solved by opening the lid for a few seconds, then replacing it and shutting down all the vents for a few seconds, then dialing it back in around 230˚
I’m telling you, after struggling with 2 different ECB’s over the past couple years, this thing is just too easy!! One thing I did notice is it’s fairly susceptible to wind, presumably due to the aluminum smoker body. However, it did seem to settle back in on it’s previous temp a few minutes later each time. The temp really only dropped 4 or 5 degrees with each gust, so I’m not worried about it.
My buddy named the mini Sputnik, due to the foil gasket between the pot and the coal pan, and it’s overall space-age appearance.
Here you can just make out the TBS which rolled effortlessly throughout the entire cook. You can also see the thick coating of pollen that covered EVERYTHING.
Did a modified 3-2-1. 3 hours smoke, 1 hour 30 minutes foil, 45 minutes back on the grate then a quick sear directly over the coals.
The result was incredibly tender but still meaty. Nice tug. Great smoke flavor, but as I said, they weren’t really trimmed very well, so the ends with the cartilage and fat were still there. For dessert, I removed the terra cotta saucer and got the mini up to about 360˚ to bake a peach cobbler (dump cake). It took about an hour and was delicious. Didn't get any pics of it as it was getting later and a sizable dent had been put in the liquor supply by that point in the evening.
I’m giving this second cook a 9.5, since the little cooker really showed it’s versatility, going from smoker, to grill, to oven mode easily.
It's weird, it looks like something was written on the ribs. The N shape is just grill marks. Or maybe someone's trying to send a message from beyond?
They look a little dry here, but they were extremely moist. Nice little smoke ring too!
There were no leftovers. The ribs look raw in this pic for some reason, but they were definitely done. Shortly after this pic was taken, Willie nearly bit his finger off in the feeding frenzy. Ok not really :)
As for a post-mortem summary, I'd say the mini is easily worth twice what it cost me to make it. It's wonderfully simple, stable and seems quite frugal on fuel. The Stubbs charcoal may have been part of that, as it's easily twice as dense as Kingsford. Only drawback on the Stubbs is it's a little stubborn getting started, but makes up for it in long burn time, good heat and very neutral flavor and aroma. All in all, I'm EXTREMELY pleased with the mini and would suggest anyone skip the cheap ready made smokers and jump directly into building one of these. Capacity's a little tight, but with a 2nd rack I have no doubt you could easily fit enough food to feed 10 or so people.
I'm betting that the aluminum pot came from a turkey fryer. I've got one that I don't use much any more (been 3 years) and I've got a Lil Smokey. Hmmmm!
I'd love to claim credit for the idea, but it's been done many times before me. The pot is a 32 quart Tamale steamer made by a company called Imusa. There are 2 versions, one made in China and one made somewhere in South America. The Chinese one is the one that fits. I think it was $23.
The Smokey Joe is the Gold version, with the vents on the side. ($29.99 at Ace Hardware) The Silver will work with some mods I believe. I can take some pics tomorrow. It's stupid easy to build and ended up costing me less than the ET-732 I used to monitor the temp. I didn't take any pics during the build as I honestly thought it had been done on here.
The terra cotta saucer is 12", and sits on the steamer insert about 2-3" from the bottom of the pot. (where the ridge is in the pictures). I didn't use any water, just lined it with foil. I do plan to get another grate which I'll just sit on top of the clay saucer.
I did essentially the same thing you'll find here:
I didn't bother with a grill thermometer because the probe thermo is much more accurate and I already had it. I just drilled a hole in the side of the pot about an inch below where the grate sits.
Again, I can't recommend this highly enough. For roughly the same price as a similarly sized ECB you get an adjustable smoker that can hold temp like a champ anywhere from 200˚ up to 375˚.
There was no way I could afford the full sized WSM right now, but I really feel like I have the next best thing.
I think that will work fine, you just need to use something to keep the ash build up from choking the vent. Most use a metal bowl or can with holes drilled in it.
Every time I've passed my little Smokey Joe for the last week, it has been whispering to me to make it smoke. Today, I revisited this thread and followed MDBoatBum's link to the Weber thread about making a mini WSM. As a result, I just got back from Wal*Mart with a 32Qt tamale steamer($19.99) and a terra cotta flower pot base. I've got some expanded metal that I was planning to use for another purpose, but now it's gonna get turned into a wrap for the coal grate in the Smokey. I'll cut out the bottom and put screws in the side of the pot after thinking some more about how deep I want the cooking rack to be.
I'll try to remember to take some pics of the process as I go, if anyone is interested.
I am definately interested. Photos please. I have been thinking about doing this since I saw this link....and I don't have a smoky joe...yet. It could happen!
I always seem to forget to bring the "big camera" with me when I need it, but managed to snap a couple phone pics. This was sort of a last minute smoke, as I'd put the chicken in the marinade the day before but had decided to just do it in the oven. Then after a busy Sunday, I changed my mind back to the original plan of smoking it. However, by this point, the hardware store was closed and the grocery store had no smoking wood. Plus, all I had was about 3 or 4 lbs of Cowboy lump. Undaunted, I soldiered on.
Here you can see the inside of the smoker. The plate at the bottom with all the holes is the steamer insert that came with the pot. It makes a fantastic diffuser for when I don't want to use the terra cotta saucer on higher heat cooks. When I DO want to use the saucer, it just sits right on top of this diffuser. A lower rack sits directly on top of the saucer when needed, giving me about 4" between racks, perfect for ABT's or other things like ribs that don't require a lot of space. I've had no troubles with heat getting to the top of the cooker with or without the saucer. The diffuser has been in place on every cook.
Here you can see where the main rack sits. It gives enough room for a decent sized pork butt.
Here you can see my solution to not having any smoking wood. This is the SS colander I use as a fire basket, and there's a layer of the lump under the sticks. The sticks are from a dead ornamental Cherry tree that was hit by lightning and has yet to be removed by the city. I just broke off a few branches. I dumped a small chimney load of lit lump on top. It worked rather well and the smoke flavor was great. There were no flame ups and the smoke was thin and blue after about 5 minutes.
And here is the guest of honor. It was marinated in a Peruvian style spice paste for about 18 hours. The flavor was really, really good. If you've ever had Peruvian chicken from places like Crisp and Juicy or Pollo Rico, it's that sort of flavor. Lots of Cumin and just a little heat. (I add a little cayenne to the recipe below) The smoke adds a wonderful layer of flavor.
Here's the recipe:
Ingredients:
* 1 whole chicken (about 4 pounds)
* 4 tablespoons white vinegar
* 3 tablespoons white wine
* 3 tablespoons canola oil
* 2 1/2 tablespoons garlic powder
* 2 tablespoons paprika
* 1 1/2 tablespoons cumin
* 2 teaspoons black pepper
* 1 teaspoon salt
* juice of 1 lemon
* 1 quart cold water
Preparation:Combine vinegar, wine, oil with garlic powder, cumin, paprika, black pepper, and salt. Mix well to form a paste. Add lemon juice to cold water. Trim chicken of any excess or loose fat. Wash chicken thoroughly with lemon water. Place chicken in zip-top bag. Pour spice paste over chicken. Coat chicken completely with mixture rubbing into every surface. Try to get the paste under the skin as much as possible.
Seal bag and place chicken in refrigerator for at least 2 hours. The chicken will have more flavor the longer it "marinates" in the spice mixture. Do not refrigerate more than 24 hours however.
Smoke at 325˚ for about an hour and a half until the breast is at 165˚ internal temp.
This chicken is frequently served with dipping sauce. A simple version of this sauce is made from combining 1/2 cup of mayonnaise with 2 tablespoons mustard and 2 tablespoons lime juice.
The skewers were just to hold the legs and wings out of the path of the heat and prevent scorching. It was delicious, Sorry, no finished pics but it got dark and we were hungry. Took it to 165˚ in the breast. It was nice and juicy, though I still haven't managed crispy skin. Needed probably to put it skin side down directly over the coals for a minute or 2, but like I said, we were hungry.
