Smokin' Hot!

Some people have asked about the smoker. So here’s some basic information for you

• The original filing cabinet was a freebie – discarded by a neighbour in Kirby Muxloe. Bob modified it last summer.
• Standard oven shelves fit the drawer runners beautifully [again, freebies]
• This summer, he made a fancy outer cover – and added a layer of insulation [scrap strips of Selotex from the church building project]
• The heat comes from regular barbecue charcoal in the bottom tray [shown below – with some jacket potatoes wrapped in tinfoil cooking away!]

This summer, Bob wanted to check the difference the insulation makes, so on Friday he smoked a chicken. There are two thermometers in use – a fixed one which tells you the heat inside the cabinet, and another one on a wire probe which tells you the heat of the meat. The oven temperature is hard to control – he was aiming for 105°C, but a lot of the time it was nearer 150° – the chicken needed to reach at least 85°C all through. It is important that the probe is tested in different parts of the meat, therefore.

 This magnetic IKEA Fantast thermometer/timer costs £7.25 and the probe detaches- so much of the time it is in the kitchen, attached to the cooker hood and in use as an oven timer.
Here is the chicken in the smoker – you can just see the tray underneath which collects the drippings. After about 3½hours the temperature was reached and the chicken was done. So we cut it up and took it for our picnic to the Sandringham Food and Drink Festival with Adrian and Marion [and used our hampers!]

This was slightly posher than our usual picnic – crusty bread, fancy salads, bottles of orange juice and blueberry drink, chicken, pork pies, Babybel cheeses, grapes and nectarines… Well we were at Sandringham!