Tag: chips

Smoking Meat in Oven with Wood Chips

written 3/4/2024

Background

I wanted to try using smoking wood chips inside of the house because I didn’t want to pull out the smoker and the chimney starter, etc, and I just wanted to imbue smoke in half of a chicken. After an extensive online search on pages overrun by advertisements and liquid smoke, I decided to just wing it. Here are my notes:

So, is it Possible?

In a word: yes. If you don’t mind your house smelling like a smokehouse for a few days

**WARNING: Please exercise caution when dealing with fire, open flames, and charcoal. Have heat rated gloves, other fire precautions, tongs, etc. When dealing with charcoal, have a vessel or means to starve it of oxygen, and a fire extinguisher. ALWAYS make sure to dispose of refuse properly**

Materials

Small wood chip pieces

BIC flexible lighter

Small baking dish

Aluminum foil

Fire mat

Heat gloves

Fire starters

Baking dish larger than other dish

Equipment

XL Toaster Oven with 2 racks

Meat thermometers

Attempt Process

  • What’s needed is something that will continuously burn the wood chips
  • I decided NOT to soak the wood chips (I quit soaking my wood chips for the meat smoker to begin with) because I’ve found that the smoke from wet wood is different from dry wood smoke, changing the taste. Plus, wet wood creates steam (This could be useful if you want it, but is easily achieved with just a small bath of water or apple juice) and we’re trying to keep the wood lighted in the oven.
  • I tried fire starters broken up into small pieces under the wood chips, but those fizzled out really quickly. Even trying to keep them smoldering by blowing on them wasn’t enough to light the wood chips despite them being really small (they were cocktail smoking chips)
  • That’s when I realized that the foil-lined cooking dish I was using had no air flow whatsoever to maintain a flame. Even the BIC flexible lighter I was using kept going out while I was trying to light things
  • I tried lighting single pieces of smoker chips and then setting that into the pile, but that kept going out and it was surprisingly hard to light them on fire to begin with. They would barely char even though the fire starter materials burned strongly around them
  • Considered whether or not having an open, uncontrolled flame in the oven was a smart idea, anyways. Came to the conclusion that even if I did succeed in lighting wood chips, it is not a good idea, so then a controlled flame would be necessary
  • So, what’s needed: a continual burn source that would not be an open, uncontrolled, flame… sounds quite a bit like: charcoal

Without Charcoal

These were my many attempts to light the smoker chips without charcoal and only fire starters. No success. Note the fireproof mat and foil covers

With Charcoal

Added the charcoal pieces and they’re successfully smoldering. You can see how after 20 minutes of trying, none of the smoker chips were even charred from the firestarters

  • Ended up placing a few small charcoal pieces  on top of the fire starters and wood chips
  • Made sure to get them ashed over outside so that the strong charcoal black smoke would not affect the meat so much
  • Placed aluminum foil overtop the small baking dish with holes large enough for convection air flow to continually feed the burning charcoal, but then too-small holes just put out the flame instead. The foil also keeps any possible arching flames in check
  • Immediately, smoke emanated from the toaster oven, so made sure to open windows enough to create a crosswind. Smoke detector did not go off! Surprisingly!
  • Meat DID have smoked taste, especially on the parts closer to the exterior of the meat, and because the low and slow smoker cook was employed halfway through the bake, much of the interior was quite soft, especially on the breast portion of the chicken
  • Caveat: The house smelled heavily like a smoker for several days
  • Figured out later that only 1 of the 2 pieces of charcoal I used had stayed lit which explains why that side of the chicken was more smoked than the other

What the small dish looked like the next day after everything cooled. You can see how everything around the spent piece of charcoal burned and therefore smoked. The right side had a piece of charcoal that did not successfully stay lit yet did manage to char the surrounding wood chips. Consequently, the left side of the chicken had a far stronger smoke flavor than the right side

Directions

These directions are not to cook it fully like a smoker, but rather just give it the flavor of smoke. You are welcome to add the smoke in increments, or as short or as long as you’d like. The key is to start the charcoal to light the wood chips, just like in a smoker.

Disclaimer: While I used a toaster oven, I don’t know how or if using charcoal inside of one would cause damage

  • Start heating up the meat in the Toaster Oven with meat thermometers to monitor the temps
  • Use 2 racks, placing the meat on the upper one
  • I used half a chicken at 350F
  • After about 15 minutes or so, prepare a small, thick baking dish by double lining it with foil (preferably cast iron, or thick ceramic, not glass)
  • Go outside, prepare a fire-safe station to start a fire (I use a fireproof blanket/mat made for underneath fire pits, had my heat gloves handy, some tongs are smart, and foil not only to cover, but to smother in case it goes crazy)
  • Place some fire starters (pulled apart tumble weeds, broken up starter cubes, or whatever) on the bottom and place a few small pieces of charcoal over top.
  • Light up the fire starters
  • When the charcoal is burning (when you blow on it you’ll see it is red) and has a nice white ash on top, throw your chips on top of the burning charcoal
  • Poke some big holes into a foil sheet for smoke, fire control, and airflow to the coals. Too small and you’ll put out your fire
  • After around 30 minutes or when the meat reaches around 100F, lower the temperature to 250F
  • Cover your smoking dish with the holey foil, put on your heat gloves, and place the dish on the bottom rack under the meat
  • OPEN YOUR WINDOWS if you haven’t, ideally creating a crosswind through the house to help the smoke you’re creating and will create when you open the oven door
  • Monitor the cook for several minutes.
  • When it’s about 10-15 degrees from being done, remove the smoking dish, and increase the temperature of the oven again
  • SAFETY: Bring the smoking dish over to your fire station and cover it with a larger baking dish to smother the fire. I placed my small dish on an aluminum roasting pan, and then the larger dish on top of that
  • Once the meat reaches doneness, let it rest before eating
  • FIRE SAFETY: Make sure to allow everything in the dish to cool down for several hours, and then dispose of properly!! Do not just throw charcoal in the trash! You can cause a fire even hours later!!!

ENJOY!

Apple Themed Smoked Ribs

Written: 1/2/2023

Notes for charcoal smoked St. Louis ribs with an apple theme pulling from a variety of online recipes and ideas

What

Charcoal-smoked St. Louis ribs

Ingredients

1 rack of St. Louis ribs, mustard, rice wine, soy sauce, apple juice, 1-2 apples, applewood chips, spices

Spices: coarse/Kosher salt, fresh-cracked peppercorn, brown sugar, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, paprika, dill weed/pickle seasoning

Foil or peach paper

Time

Prep, Overnight, 3-5 hours in smoker

Steps

  • Combine the spices in a bowl: coarse salt, pepper, brown sugar, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, paprika
  • Very important: remove the connective tissue lining the bone side of the ribs: Slide a butter knife under the film on a bone. Carefully wiggle until you can grasp the film and then pull. It should come right off cleanly.
  • Cut the rack into 2 if you want (you can also season them differently if desired)
  • Add soy sauce, rice wine, and mustard, spreading evenly on both sides
  • Rub the combined spices into the meat on both sides
  • Very lightly, sprinkle a hint of dill/pickle seasoning
  • Use plastic wrap to tightly bind the rack
  • Refrigerate overnight

Smoking day

  • Take the meat out and let it get to room temperature
  • Optionally, soak some applewood or pecan chips (there is plenty of argument about the functionality of this on the internet)
  • Prepare the smoker (my set up is quite involved, so it’s a good time killer)
  • Start the charcoal in the chimney starter (don’t use lighter fluid)
  • Finish prepping the thermometers, tongs, and workspace
  • Cut the fresh apples into pieces
  • When the charcoal is ready, pour it into the firebox and add a few chips and 1 or 2 apple slices. Yes, apple slices! (apple gives off this neato perfume when it burns)
  • Let the temperature get to be around 250F or so and put the ribs bone side down at the highest point (I’m using a vertical offset smoker)
  • Ribs can be smoked anywhere between 225F to 300F and they’ll still end up great. Faster cook at higher temps, slower at lower temps (duh.)
  • Note: When cooking with charcoal, bigger chunks are good for longer even burning, and smaller chunks give high heat faster. Adjust according to your cooking goals
  • About 30 minutes in and at 60 minutes throw in your wood chips and apple pieces. Remember that you can add smoke flavor, but you can’t take it away, so be wary of over-smoking your meat. I personally don’t like a lot of smoke flavor, so that’s it for the chips at this step for the rest of the cook.
  • About 1.5 to 2 hours in (depending on amount of meat), remove the ribs. They should have a nice bark on them at this point.
  • Brush on or spritz some apple juice all over the meat
  • Using peach paper (or foil), wrap the ribs
  • Place them back in the smoker
  • Add more charcoal to maintain the temperature and any remaining chips or apple pieces
  • After 1-2 hours, do the bounce/bend test: if you give the ribs a nice shake and they start to crack, then they’re done. If not, then brush on some more apple juice and let ’em keep cooking.
  • Good internal temp for the meat is, apparently, 180-200F
  • When they’re done, let the ribs sit for a little and then serve

What happened to me is that it was getting dark, the air temperature was rapidly dropping, and I didn’t want to start up another batch of charcoal, so I took them inside and put them in the convection toaster oven at 275 for an hour. The end product was really, quite good. I like subtle flavors, and this was subtle on every level: lightly sweet from the apple juice, perfect hint of smoke, no overpowering spices, a good bark crust despite the apple juice and peach paper. No need for BBQ sauce! The only thing that could have made it better was cooking at the higher temperatures the whole time (except I had other meats in there, too) and putting enough charcoal in there to achieve that.

I love apples!