Tag: toaster oven

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

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!