MINI-ME Miracle Home Smoker…cheap, effective, easy
12 July 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
As I said in our last blurb the little homemade terracotta device, MINI-ME “smokes” anything available on the market below $1,000. Why? Its tiny interior (relatively speaking) makes heat/smoke easy to generate and easy to control. Made from heat containing material (clay) instead of heat diffusing material (thin metal) this device is user-friendly to the max. I’ve owned bunches of commercial smokers over the years and the results never came close to the amount of effort required. This little sucker generates tons of smoke within three minutes and the smallness of the interior makes hardwood last seemingly forever. When I first started using MINI-ME I found myself trudging out every hour on the hour to dutifully replenish hardwood however I found that there was no need: smoke would be pouring out from beneath the lid. The smallish device generates wood smoke for 2-3 hours on a single small pan of hickory or mesquite before needing replenishment. Basting is a different matter but the momentum-busting charcoal or chip replenishment is eliminated. With thin metal water smokers I found myself having to fire up a new batch of charcoal every hour and even with due diligence the results were lame. With MINI-ME you pop the lid, baste whatever with whatever, quickly replace the lid and roll on. I can get three hours of intense smoke out of one pan of hardwood and charcoal usage is a thing of the past.
I’ve had my MINI-ME Miracle Terracotta Wood Smoker up and running for a few weeks and this thing is by far the most effective smoke contraption I’ve ever used and I’ve used all of the commercially available types. Two things make this device effective: the heat conductor is clay not metal and this funky substance holds heat incredibly well. The clay is thick and reflects the heat inward instead of letting it dissipate through the surface as thin metal does. The smoker is small and miniaturized and easy to create, contain and control heat and smoke to an exacting degree. Regardless the food cargo the smoking procedure is identical: turn on the hot plate, load the pie pan with hardwood, place the payload on the wire grate and close it up. A continual temperature of 200 to 225-degree is ideal. I will eventually drill a hole in the lid and placing the thermometer where I can read it at a glance from outside. Periodically baste fish/fowl/meat. When it’s time to add new hardwood take the 17-inch top off and turn it upside down on a table. Reach in with oven mitts and remove the wire rack with the food still on it. Set the rack and food onto the overturned top and use tongs to lift the pie pan of burning hardwood out of the smoker. Set it somewhere safe. Dump the ash and burned hardwood somewhere appropriate and add new wood. Set the freshly loaded pan back inside the smoker on the hot plate. Baste the food, set the rack and food back into the smoker and close it up. On we go. When this device is up and cranking at capacity, tantalizing wisps of fragrant wood smoke mix with the meat/fish smell. The smoke slips out under the lid and the resultant smell positively seductive. “Languid, luscious, lustful.”
The drawback is capacity: smallish, not tiny but small. On the upside it takes very little wood-fuel to keep this sucker smoking like a locomotive. The lid fit is heavy and complete; the inner chamber supercharged with intense smoke and infused with the wood flavor of your choice. Hickory and mesquite are the most widely available and both are excellent. The device is safe because everything is neatly contained inside the sturdy pot. Regardless the protein source selected, the procedure is the same: place the food inside the supercharged smoke chamber for as long as it takes to reaches doneness staying at 200-225-degrees. What is doneness? Generally speaking, for beef an internal temperature of 140-degees and for fowl 170-degrees. Seafood varies. Some thick cuts could take 10-12 hours to cook. Shrimp or white fish fillets might be done in a matter of minutes. It takes a while to cook something to doneness at 225-degees. The purposeful slowness allows the smoke to penetrate and infuse. This device is earthen and primitive, one bus stop away from burying pigs in the ground. “Genius Jerry…Gold Jerry.” Hats off to Mr. Wizard Alton Brown for continually being innovative and funky. The total cost was under $50. I placed a couple of plastic chairs and a plastic table next to the smoker. Command central. I set the smoker up next to the unheated garage gym. How convenient for me: I can tend it during our lifting sessions and simultaneously torture and tempt the lifters with the smell of the succulent slow-roasting meats and seafood. The BBQ smoke smell drifting into the gym drives everyone to insane distraction. Interestingly the crowd favorite to this point is shrimp: jumbo shelled shrimp smoked for less than an hour sends eaters into ecstatic spasms of ecstasy. My legal Consigliore and his sensualist consort visited over the 4th and pronounced the jumbo smoked shrimp “as good as any” they’d ever eaten. High praise indeed from Caesar.
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