---

---

home made smoke pouch

There's something about the taste of food cooked on an open fire that makes all of us smile. It might be ingrained in us as an innate feeling which was passed down through the generations from a time when our ancestors cooked this way or the day when the first fire was lit and mankind moved forward on the evolutionary scale. Whatever it is and what ever makes us draw to a fire roasted meal all I know is it tastes darn good. In that spirit we are going to make a homemade smoke pouch that we can put in the barbie to get some smoke going and get that flavour on our favourite grilled foods any time we want. You can buy smoke boxes now and that is a good way to go but to tell you the truth I haven't gotten around to it so I will have to improvise.

design

Building a smoke pouch is pretty easy. It is simply tin foil, wood chips of your choice and that is it.

The finished smoke pouch

Take a handful of woodchips and soak them in cold water for about an hour. On a large piece of tinfoil place your soaked woodchips and then an equal handful of dry woodchips. Wrap the foil nice and tight and pierce with a knife or fork to make a bunch of holes for the smoke to come out of. Lift up the grill and place your smoke pouch on the heating element of your bbq. Close the lid and run the grill on med high heat until you see smoke. You are now ready to grill “over an open fire". If you want to slow smoke something like ribs do the same thing to get the smoke going but make sure your smoke pouch is on one side of the bbq with only one element on. When you get smoke you can place your meat on the side of the bbq with the unlit element and keep the grill's temperature at about 275 degrees. This will allow you to smoke your ribs, pork shoulder or whatever you like for hours. You will end up with an incredibly flavourful piece of meat. More on this to come