Smoking without a smoker

A lively debate has sprung up on Serious Eats over how to smoke meat at home when you don’t own a smoker. It turns out that the average home chef is fairly ingenious when it comes to makeshift smokers; suggestions range from using a wok to a soldering iron.

Although some techniques are likely to ensure you don’t get your security deposit back at the end of the year, most sound at least plausible for recreating the effects of smoke and low heat.

For smoking indoors, a steamer insert for a pasta pot would seem to be a good start. The two main challenges would be containing the smoke and keeping whatever you’re smoking separate from what you’re cooking. Filtering the smoke through a colander or perforated pan seems like a plausible solution. 

Outside on the grill, the use of a soldering iron, smoking pellets and a tin can seems like a quick and dirty answer to creating a cold smoker. Those who are ready for the advanced lesson in the do-it-yourself movement, this breakdown of Alton Brown’s flower pot smoker looks like an expensive but interesting smoker hack.

So outside of putting a Big Green Egg on layaway, what’s the best way to smoke when you don’t own a smoker?

[Image via Flickr: paul lowry]