Just because you live in an Apartment and can’t “technically” grill doesn’t mean you can’t smoke. As long as you have a working vent, a digital thermometer and and understanding landlord, you’ll be fine. Granted, you won’t do a pork shoulder let alone a pig, you can do a loin on this.
And yes, this is a bitch rigged method I’ve used in numerous bars to smoke various items. It takes a bit of getting used to and you have to keep your eye on it but it works.
Here’s what you need:
- A deep aluminum hotel pan
- Soaked wood chips
- Aluminum foil
- A digital thermometer
- A shallow half pan aluminum hotel pan
- Tongs
- Open windows
Here’s how you do it:
- First off, set aside a hand full of wood chips and keep them dry then soak the remainder in water for at least an hour. Pro tip, wood floats so you’ll need to weigh em down with something
- Place the large pan on the stove
- Stab some small vent holes in the smaller pan. Don’t stab yourself, stab the pan.
- Place the smaller pan in the back of the larger one and turn on your hood vent to high and go ahead and open some windows since chances are the vent on your stove sucks (totally not your fault, I understand)
- Turn on the front burner to Med-High and throw in a few of the dry wood chip.
- Once the wood catches and starts to smoke, add some of the wet wood chips and mix.
- Add whatever you’re smoking to the smaller pan.
- Take a look at the wood. If the burner is up too high, the chips will catch fire. This isn’t smoking, this is bad. At the same time, if the burner is too low, you won’t have enough heat to smoke. It’s a matter of finding the right balance on YOUR stove and this is why you really have to pay attention.
- Cover the pans with foil and leave a little bit open towards the back so that the smoke can circulate and move.
Other notes:
- Yes you can cook with this, IE, raw to finished product, but it’s going to take a while since you really need to keep the temp on the low side or else things can get really smokey and this can lead to not only your smoke alarm going off, but the building’s smoke alarm. Go slow and low and focus on the flavor when you start playing with this.
- Keep the foil semi loose so that you can check and adjust the wood as needed. Or you can use a sheet tray which is what I end up doing in most places.
