Last summer I made a hot/cold smoker and today we dusted it off to make do our first smoking of 2013. In our time we have made our own smoked salmon, cheese and sausage but today we are hot smoking a rack of pork ribs. I will explain briefly how I built the smoker because it was really easy.
To build your own hot smoker you will need:
A metal bin (not plastic for obvious reasons)
a single hob electric cooker
A round metal BBQ Grill
Metal tubular steel
Optional extras:
Electrical wire
2mm sheet steel
Method:
If you want external controls (which I would recommend) then before fixing your cooker drill a hole for the temperature control. My hob had a red 
indicator light which I simply extended the wiring on, and mounted on the outside of the bin. remove the turny nob on the temp control. Position your cooker so that the temperature control shaft extends to the outside of the bin and replace the nob.
Screw or find some way to permanently affix your stove to the base of the metal bin. My hob had 4 screws that fixed the plasic base the the metal top. I simply removed the plastic base and used the screw holes in the metal top to screw into from the base of the bin.
Optional: Because I extended the wiring for the red LED light I wanted to neaten it all up so I cut a half moon of sheet steel and put a plate covering the gap between the hob and the side of the bin.
Then you simply need a run the mains wire out of the back of the bin and replace the plug. Because I keep my smoker outside I also used rubber gromets to seal the holes around the wires.
Now you need to build your coking platform. I simply used two bits of old tubular steel and fixed them horizontally about 8″ from the brim of the bin with 4 bolts.
That is basically it!
How to hot smoke:
You need a metal bowl and some wood chips (the type of chip really effects the flavour)
Put your wood chips in the metal bowl and place your bowl directly onto the hob. Turn your smoker on. your bowl will begin to heat the wood and produce smoke within minutes. Keep your lid on as much as possible. Prepare your meat, fish or whatever and place them on a round BBQ grill and rest them on the cooking platform.
Your wood chips will last about 2-4 hours before they need replacing with fresh ones.
Cooking times for hot smoking can vary depending on the type of ingredients being cooked but a general rule of thumb is the longer the better!
Brief note on cold smoking: Cold smoking is used to smoke salmon, cheese or things that you do not really want to cook. I use the same bin for this but have an after-market smoke generator which is basically a coiled mesh device that you fill with wood dust. They can be bought for about £20.
Today we are hot smoking pork (Red Tractor Assured) from Jimmy’s farm. The pork is so great that we felt it deserved something really special. We simply coated the pork in Wikin & Sons Barbecue sauce added a little salt and threw it in the smoker with Beech chips. Because this is a big bit of meat I am going to smoke it for about 8 hours today ready for cooking properly in the oven tomorrow. Today is just about getting flavour into the meat!
Here are the results of the smoking and once it was cool it went into the fridge ready for a long slow cook tomorrow. I must admit I think this one will be pretty special. We’ll let you know how it turns out.
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