Anyone who owns a grill knows how important heat is as a weapon. But there's more than one way to harness it, especially if you already own a charcoal grill. It's time to start smoking your meat—without using a smoker.
See, grilling is hot and fast, smoking is low and slow. The process uses indirect and convective heat to slowly cook the entire piece of meat, instead of searing it hard against hot metal. That nice, slow smoke will give your meat a few added hints of outdoor flavor and, hopefully, allow you to get more creative cooking outside. More flavor, more ways to barbecue. All in 14 steps:
1. Choose your meat. Before you start smoking, you'll need something to smoke. Pick out something that goes well with a smoker, like chicken, salmon or sausage. Avoid steak and pork chops—meat that you'd hard grill.
2. Prep your meat. Split the chicken because it creates more surface area for smoking. Brine it in salt, sugar, and water. Sprinkle it with pepper. Slice the sausage's casing so the fat has somewhere to go. Thinly, center-cut the salmon and leave the skin on. Cure that in brown sugar and salt.
3. Time to work on the grill. Load the bottom of a charcoal chimney starter about a quarter of the way full with paper, then fill up the rest with charcoal. Use mesquite charcoals to get the maximum smoke.
4. Light the paper where it sticks out at the bottom of the chimney charcoal starter. Leave the chimney be for 20 minutes. Do not put the lid on the grill.
5. Pour some water on the wood chips you have in a tray, but not for too long. A good soaking prevents the chips from burning before you add the meat.
6. Let the coals fall out of the chimney (after those 20 minutes). Then spread the coals around the sides of the grill and put in a few new coals on top of the old to pick up the heat as the old coals die off.
7. Sprinkle the wood chips all around the outside on top of the coals. Using the space in the center of all the smoking coals, place a tin pan and fill it three-quarters-full with water.
8. If the coals flare up, flick some water on the fire to keep it relaxed.
9. Put a grilling grate over the coals and put a thermometer on it. Wait until it hits 300-degrees and then put the chicken on.
10. Wait it out. After about an hour, check the chicken. It should have browned. Then put the salmon and sausage on. Make sure the salmon is skin-side down. The sausage will release a lot of fat, so coil it up near the center on the grill grate.
11. For good airflow, set the top and bottom vents half-closed.
12. Flip the sausage after 30 minutes. Check the chicken and salmon.
13. It'll probably be another 15 or 30 minutes until everything's ready, but keep checking until the color looks good.
14. Voila. Perfectly smoked meat.
