The Alton Brown Smoker

Few things in life satisfy more than creating something delicious or useful with your own hands. Yet it seems these things are far more satisfying when they take a long time. This may be the reason that barbecuing becomes an obsession for so many people. It is something you must work at and wait for. The nice thing is, it seems pretty hard to screw up.

I first saw the "Q" episode of Good Eats a few years ago but didn't think twice about it. Over the last couple years I have gotten more involved with food and a few months ago I saw the episode again. I had never tried smoking anything, but I love barbecue and I'm always looking for something to spend some time and money on. I should explain that, in the episode, Alton builds a smoker out of ceramic pots and an electric hotplate. This appeals to me, a college student, who cannot fork over 700 bucks for a ceramic smoker. So far the smoker works great so I thought I would share how to make it.

Things to buy:
2 - 18" terra cotta pots

An electric hotplate (I recommend the $10 one from Walgreens)
22.5" replacement grill grate
Replacement grill thermometer
Heavy duty metal pie pan
3 bricks
Wood chunks of your choice (I recommend having hickory and a fruit wood like apple)

Everything here can be found at Lowe's or Home Depot, except the hotplate and pie pan. You may see other people using a 17" pot with a 17" terra cotta bowl used for the lid. You can do this too, just buy a 16" grill grate instead. I went with the 18" pots because of the increased cooking space. They don't make 18" terra cotta bowls so don't waste your time looking (I wasted a lot of time) just buy 2 pots. The hotplate from walgreens is nice because it is cheap and easy to take apart, which I will explain in a second, but any open coil electric hotplate will probably work.

Now to put it all together. First, take apart the hotplate. With the Walgreens version it is very simple and will allow you to control the temperature of the smoker from outside the pot. This will limit the number of times you must open the smoker and lose your heat. Follow these simple steps:

1. Unscrew the middle screw that connects the burner to the plastic base.

2. There are two wires inside the base which are connected by simple tabs. Pull these apart to seperate the burner from the base.

3. Place the base of the plate between the bricks and thread the wires through the hole in the bottom of a pot. Place the burner inside the base and reconnect the wires.

Now the heating controls are outside the smoker!

Place the pie pan on the hotplate and the grill grate in the lip of the bottom pot. Invert the second pot ontop of the first and plug the hole on top with the thermometer. Now you are ready to barbecue and you didn't spend $700 to do it! Of course you could always go out and buy a cheapo metal smoker for around $50, but metal smokers do not hold heat very well. The key to good barbecue is consistent low heat and the ceramic pots insulate well and the hotplate doesn't require fuel. Also, what fun is there in just buying something? Altogether this smoker cost about $70. I recommend that anyone who has considered barbecuing go and build one. There will be plenty of barbecue recipes to come!