After sharing some tasty smoked babyback ribs last week, a friend convinced me to follow his lead and build a smoker. I scored a cheap hotplate, and was planning on attempting the first run in a cardboard box, as Alton Brown did in a salmon episode. Alas, 4 half slabs were much larger than I remembered, and I was hesitant to try hooking and hanging them- the only way I'd cram them into that tiny box, envisioning uneven cooking, or worse: falling off into the ashes once the meat became tender and giving.
With ribs already in the fridge but no proper smoking apparatus, I thought I'd give it a whirl on the BBQ. Although its a decent 4 burner unit, I wasn't thrilled with its performance. Leaving the furthest burner on the lowest setting with smoke chips would still eventually overheat the ribs. It took constant manning to crack the lid and sometimes spray down the grills to keep the temp between 200-250. 3 hours and a homebrew later, they were done:
To complete the Weekend of Meat, I also made another batch of A.B.'s flank steak jerky: here in virgin form about to be stacked on the box fan:
Mmmm... meat.
