A Redneck Michigan Smoker in Tuscany's Hills

[Anomaly]

A redneck Michigan smoker in Tuscany’s hills.

With apologies to: Mark Twain, and Michiganders and rednecks everywhere.

Forty-three years ago, I was crab fishing in Alaska and in the off-seasons staying a friend’s house. He was from Michigan (the Traverse City area if that makes a difference to this story—read on, it might…). After tanner season, he decided to completely remodel his house. This involved decommissioning the kitchen. For about four months. “Don’t worry” he said. “We’ll just use a barrel smoke like we do back home in Michigan.” For those four months, I cooked every meal on the barrel smoker and/or a Coleman camp stove. Outdoors.

When we bought the little vineyard and olive grove here that keeps us busy (when we were finishing up the olive harvest in November, I said to my wife “you know, all this peasant shit is getting in the way of motorcycle riding”), I noticed a number of rusty 55 gallon drums lying around the property. I immediately started telling my wife “hey, I’m gonna make a barrel smoker like I used in Kodiak.” That was about two years ago and ever since, whenever I see one of the barrels I say “yeah, I gotta make that smoker”—well miracle of miracles, I got around to it a week ago. Took me all of 5 minutes. You too can have one, if you have five minutes. And an old rusty barrel.

Here’s how (you can thank me later):

1) The barrel should be empty (duh) and either really old and rusty inside or never used to carry anything nasty or toxic. One end should be open.

2) Cut a small arch/opening at the bottom of the barrel (not the open end)

3) Place the barrel upright, with the arch you just cut at ground level and dig a little trench/pit in front of the arch

IMG_20230105_113503.jpg

4) Place a grill inside the barrel, about 1/3 of the way down from the top. I found a grill with sort of an octagon shape that fit perfectly into the first stiffening rib but the usual method is to just pound large nails in from the outside and rest a grill (can come from an old oven grill or a refrigerator grill)

IMG_20230105_114600.jpg

5) Pay attention here, this step is important. Cut a sheet of roofing metal to fit up against the curve of the barrel. —NO scribing, no cut line. No recuts. In the words of Marlon Brando’s character in The Godfather “act like a man!” Resist the urge to get fancy here. You can ruin the whole thing if you get fussy. Grab that right angle grinder and just cut the damn thing—it’s only a barrel smoker.

IMG_20230105_114903.jpg

6) Build a fire in the pit-trench you dug in step three. Small twigs/branches work best but you can use any wood available to you. The idea is to have small intense fire that you feed fairly often. Altering the kind of wood can alter the resulting smoke flavor.

IMG_20230105_160617.jpg

7) Once the fire is established, place the metal sheet you cut (freehand!) in step 5 over the fire and tuck it up against the barrel



8) Place whatever you are cooking on the grill and cover the barrel with another sheet of (found—don’t you dare BUY something for this step, you can ruin the whole thing here too) over the top of the barrel. A corrugated sheet works best so that it lets the smoke and hot gases out the top (the barrel is acting like a chimney once your fire is going good)

IMG_20230105_114959.jpg

9) Feed the fire as needed.


You can cook almost anything in the barrel smoker. Chicken, ribs, roasts, fish, and sausages are some examples. If you build a really intense fire and keep it hot, you can cook steaks or hamburgers. In contrast, if you have a very small/weak fire you can smoke cheese (gotta be careful with this one…).

To test it out (hey, it had been 43 years, maybe I dreamed the whole thing…), I tried out a whole chicken (butterflied).

IMG_20230105_160726.jpg

45 minutes later, I had this (things come out wonderfully tender and juicy):

IMG_20230105_172951.jpg

Forty-three years. It was worth the wait

IMG_20230104_164229.jpg

Editor's note: it has been brought to our attention that the above account allegedly contains a few typos. Seriously? Do you really think that someone who a) builds a Michigan redneck smoker and b) publishes it on the internet, gives a **** about a "few" typos?

[BeauV]

This is great! Now, where did I leave my angle grinder and gas torch??

[H B]

Beau...I happen to know where my torch is since I am using it to try and get the props off the powerboat..No luck yet.

Nice tutorial, Anom!

[Tim Ford]

43 years ago? You were crab fishing in Alaska when you were five years old?

Geez, and I thought MY parents were laissez-faire...

[Jamie]

That looks delicious. Aftermath?

[Anomaly]

That looks delicious. Aftermath?

Aftermath? Two full bellies and plans for lots of cookouts with friends when the weather improves. We cooked mackerel, mullet and mussels for the next trial (all came out very tasty) but we haven't done anything in it recently as we are traveling (currently in Trieste).