Earl Cooks Fires Up the Upright Barrel Smoker after Years of Disuse

Several years ago I thought I would try smoking some meats, so I bought a cheap smoker (pictured new on the left). I met with almost no success, because I had no Idea what I was doing. Now that I am cooking regularly I thought I would give this little guy another try. I had leftover charcoal and mesquite wood chips from when I first got the smioker, and I wanted to try smoking some things I thought would be good. But first, I set myself to cleaning up this smoker. Thanks to the lid, the inside was okay. It didn't look like the photo, and there were a of bunch spider webs inside, but that cleaned up quickly. What took a bit of time were the grates. This model has a charcoal pan, a water pan, and two grates. Not worried about the charcoal pan, but I do need to clean the rest...especially the grates.

I knew I wanted to start with some basics that are cheap, to experiment on. Yukon Gold potatoes, a sweet yellow onion, and some inexpensive franks would be ideal. I quartered the potatoes, quartered the onion and used bun length franks from Bar-S. I decided to add some peeled, hard cooked eggs later too!

Using my chimney starter and a brown paper sack sprayed with vegetable oil, I lit up the briquettes. It takes about 20 minutes to get them to the white ash stage. Alton Brown on the Food Network uses newspaper, but we have gone totally electronic for our news and I don't have any. But I do like to get  paper bags when I shop because they are not only recyclable, they made are from recycled paper. As you can see IT WORKS GREAT! Once the coals were ready, I put them in the coal rack on the bottom. Then I added mesquite wood chips. I should have added them wrapped in foil or in a smoking box, but I plain forgot! Oh well. I also forgot to add the water pan to create a moist heating environment.  I fixed that later, but for now, it was fine.

I started by putting the potatoes on the bottom grate and the eggs, which I had hard cooked and peeled, on the top. My reasoning was the eggs would not need much time, and the potatoes could use the extra smoke. This turned out to be slightly faulty reasoning, which I will explain later.*

The first thing off the smoker are the eggs. As you can see, they had a lovely smokey color. The problem became that the smoke and heat on an already-cooked egg created a bit of a rubbery exterior. The egg was perfect inside, with no green ring around the yolk, and you could taste the smokiness. Next I removed the potatoes which were smoky, but again the skin was a bit tough. I had no idea what I was doing with these items going in. I now know what went wrong.

The last thing I took off the smoker was the last to go on...the HOT DOGS! They were the one thing I had confidence in. I have cooked many many hot dogs...but I have never smoked them!

They were PERFECT! Especially when I put them on some toasted buns, with Dijon mustard and a pickle slice.






*Some footnotes:

•  I said I would tell you why putting potatoes on the bottom and eggs on the top didn't work. I needed to cover the potatoes to protect them from the heat. The bottom rack was too hot.
•  The eggs were cooked and peeled, but the added heat  caused them to split. They too needed protection. I tried leaving the shell on in another batch, and they cooked, but no noticeable smoke penetrated the shell. I will have to find another way.
• I didn't write much about the onion. It turned out very smoky and I added some to my hot dog, but it was too big to stay in the bun, so it isn't shown, but tasted great.

Conclusions:
This was a qualified success. The hot dogs were well worth it and I will be doing them again - soon! I also realized that I had the components for a smoked potato salad, which sounds very good and I will post how it turns out! I also gained a new tool in my cooking arsenal, well an old tool revived, my smoker! I will be using it as a smoker and a small charcoal grill well into the Fall!