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McGyvering a cinder block smoker

McGyvering a cinder block smoker
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  • McGyvering a cinder block smoker

    Post #1 - January 2nd, 2010, 10:07 pm
    Post #1 - January 2nd, 2010, 10:07 pm Post #1 - January 2nd, 2010, 10:07 pm
    For New Year's Eve, I went down to River Junction, Iowa, where a friend of mine's family puts on an annual fireworks show with the Stumptown Shooters Pyrotechnics Club. I volunteered to help cater the event by smoking four pork shoulders and 15 pounds of Uncle John's hot links. (The original plan was for a whole heritage pig, but our supplier was out of town for over a week and we couldn't get in touch with him.) The only problem being, my friend Dave does not have a smoker, much less one that can handle that much meat at a time. No problem, we figured, we're clever folks and we can fashion something out of cinderblocks, random pieces of metal, aluminum foil, painter's tape, and an actual chimney flue we found in his shed.

    Step one, making the smoker:

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    Beauty or engineering awards she ain't gonna win, but Ugly Ursula did the job better than I could have ever hoped for. We gave it a quick test run the night before, and discovered that our airflow was adequate, our cooking grate temps hovered in the 200-300 range, provided we continually fed quarter split logs every 20-30 minutes (we used a mix of maple, black walnut, and apple wood there was lying around.) This was the first time I had ever done a pure-wood fire barbecue (no charcoal) and I was afraid of creosote or a bitter smoky taste, but our test batch of ribs had none of that. Just clean wood flavor, rich red smoke color. I was overjoyed that our McGyvering seems to have worked. So, 6 a.m. sharp on New Year's Eve, Dave and I awoke to start the fire:


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    Our Frankensmoker became a bit of a tourist attraction. Here's me showing it to two of the Stumptown Shooters, Gene and Andy:
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    David maintaining the wood fire:

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    12 hours later, shoulder ready to pull and serve (along with Uncle John's hot links):
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    Everything was a success. I could not have hoped for a better outcome. Pork miraculously finished right on time. Juicy, smokey, easily pulled. In my opinion, my best pulled pork effort to date, and I think the cooking method has most to do with it. The hot links were a big hit, too, all fifteen pounds gone before the end of the night. Ugly Ursula made us proud, but I'm afraid she may have set the bar a little high if we're to do this again next year.

    And a Stumptown Shooters pyrotechnic extravaganza to ease us into the new decade:
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  • Post #2 - January 2nd, 2010, 10:36 pm
    Post #2 - January 2nd, 2010, 10:36 pm Post #2 - January 2nd, 2010, 10:36 pm
    Binko -- Great improvisation! Very impressive...

    Happy New Year...

    Antonius
    Alle Nerven exzitiert von dem gewürzten Wein -- Anwandlung von Todesahndungen -- Doppeltgänger --
    - aus dem Tagebuch E.T.A. Hoffmanns, 6. Januar 1804.
    ________
    Na sir is na seachain an cath.
  • Post #3 - January 2nd, 2010, 11:27 pm
    Post #3 - January 2nd, 2010, 11:27 pm Post #3 - January 2nd, 2010, 11:27 pm
    Binko wrote:Beauty or engineering awards she ain't gonna win, but Ugly Ursula did the job better than I could have ever hoped for. We gave it a quick test run the night before,

    Fantastic, really nice, Ugly Ursula is my new Pinup Girl!

    Love the way you jury rigged the cinder block pit to cook offset and very smart to give it UU a test run the night before.

    Looked like a fun and tasty time was had by all.

    Enjoy,
    Gary
    Hold my beer . . .

    Low & Slow
  • Post #4 - January 2nd, 2010, 11:41 pm
    Post #4 - January 2nd, 2010, 11:41 pm Post #4 - January 2nd, 2010, 11:41 pm
    Binko,

    I'm impressed with your efforts.

    I am also feeling very cold looking at your pictures. I hope you stayed warm enough.

    Thanks for documenting your cook.

    Regards,
    Cathy2

    "You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
    Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways,
  • Post #5 - January 3rd, 2010, 6:26 am
    Post #5 - January 3rd, 2010, 6:26 am Post #5 - January 3rd, 2010, 6:26 am
    binko,
    great post, nice job on building that smoker
    philw bbq cbj for kcbs &M.I.M. carolina pit masters
  • Post #6 - January 3rd, 2010, 11:33 am
    Post #6 - January 3rd, 2010, 11:33 am Post #6 - January 3rd, 2010, 11:33 am
    G Wiv wrote:
    Binko wrote:Beauty or engineering awards she ain't gonna win, but Ugly Ursula did the job better than I could have ever hoped for. We gave it a quick test run the night before,

    Fantastic, really nice, Ugly Ursula is my new Pinup Girl!

    Love the way you jury rigged the cinder block pit to cook offset and very smart to give it UU a test run the night before.

    Looked like a fun and tasty time was had by all.

    Enjoy,
    Gary


    Thanks! The offset vs direct question was a running thread. My original intention, when the whole pig was a possibility, was to do it direct, with the grate three cinderblocks high, and the total height of the pit five cinderblocks. When our whole hog idea didn't pan out, I thought an offset firebox would make life a lot easier...provided enough airflow to move the heat and smoke through and out the chimney. Building a cinder block smoker is basically just Legos for grown-ups. And that includes the frustration of sifting through a bunch of garbage trying to find that one perfect piece you're looking for...and inevitably not having it.

    And, yes, a test run was always in the cards. My plan B, should the cooking grate not have gotten hot enough, was always to ditch the offset and build the fire and smoke the meat in the same chamber. Now, whether I would have done it direct, or just put the meat on one side (with the chimney) and a small fire on the other, possibly with water pans to buffer and dissipate the heat, I don't know, but we never got to that point to figure it out. An oven thermometer at our grate showed a pretty consistent temp--anywhere in the 200-250 range when a three or four quarter-log fire was going (each log being about a foot and a half long and, say, eight inches diameter.) It would spike to 450 if you went crazy and stuffed the firebox full of wood and dip to 150 once the woods burned down to embers. So we discovered, about three or four quarters would do.

    To control airflow, we placed two cinderblocks on their side (opening facing into the firebox) with two cinderblocks in their normal orientation atop. Those we would pull aside to feed the wood in and to crack open to allow more airflow if needed. We kept those closed as much as possible the whole time. We also foiled the entire interior of the cooking area to help keep the heat in and aid in clean-up.

    So, having discovered, much to our delight, that cooking grate temp seemed to be fairly steady and in the 200-300 range we were shooting for, the only real question left was would the smoke flavor be clean or not? Like I said, I had never done an all-wood barbecue before. Usually, it's just lump charcoal and about 6-8 fist-sized pieces of wood. Here, it felt like we were burning down half a forest to cook some meat. Logs had to be added approximately every 30 minutes to maintain temperature. We could have tried to restrict airflow a little more and slow down the burn, but we had enough wood and the temps were on-target, so we didn't want to mess with that.

    When we pulled the trimmed spare ribs (they were, unfortunately, trimmed to about the size of baby-backs, and cut into about 8-inch slabs. That's how they came from the local butcher. I asked for full, but he doesn't have any unless we call ahead. I prefer full spares.) after about 3 1/2 hours, they were tasting good. I decided to let them go another hour and a half, and this made about half of them a little bit overdone. I should have pulled them at about 4:00-4:15. At any rate, my main concern was the smoke. Maple, black walnut, and apple. I've only worked with apple before. I heard black walnut can be a little rough, so I used that sparingly, and maple is supposed to be pretty good all-around wood, so the bulk of the fire was maple and apple, with a bit of black walnut thrown in.

    With the first bite, I knew everything was going to be okay. No soot. No bitterness. Just clean smoke, crisp bark, and a beautiful red hue to the meat. The only question left was when to start. I voted on 6 a.m., figuring it'd be 7 by the time we're ready to throw in the butts, and that would give us some leeway. If it's finished way early, no problem, but I was hoping it wouldn't take longer than 13 hours. I could always just make chopped pork (which actually is my preference) if I don't quite get into the pulling state.

    So at 6 a.m., David and I got up, and began prepping. I rubbed them with mostly salt and pepper, and a little bit of paprika and chile powder thrown in. The more rubs I make, the more I seem to go the minimalist route towards salt and pepper only. We placed the four butts (they were actually still slightly frozen in the center. The butcher promised us fresh butts, but they came in frozen that day so we had to leave them in a tub of water overnight) farthest away from the smokebox, fat side up. At two hours, we rotated them with the two nearest the chimney swapping their places with the two nearest the smokebox. We also added half of the hot links for lunch, placing them on the grate closest to the smokebox. At four hours, we flipped the shoulders and swapped in an "X" pattern. An hour later, we pulled the links for lunch. At six or seven hours, we rotated front-to-back again. Eight hours, "X" pattern, etc. At 6:30 p.m., we had an internal temp of 195+, the meat was feeling floppy, the bone was loose. Ready to eat!

    Now, there were a couple of setbacks. We had two of our oven lids partially burn down: one the day before, one the day of. (We didn't have enough spare non-galvanized metal so had to use sheets of wood wrapped in aluminum foil.) That's where the painters tape to hold the aluminum foil together came in (couldn't be bothered to find the duct tape). We also accidentally threw some pine in the fire, initially. We noticed when the smokebox started producing some black smoke, but weren't sure why. Gene came out and said, um, did you get that wood from the sauna? That's all pine. So we got that out in a hurry, with no apparent harm done.

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