Testing
The first test was obviously done with some pork and some sausages. Those are easy to handle and easy to find a workaround if s.th. doesn't work as expected. I had actually some problems with the positioning of the meat above the blaze, but it was not critical.
I also tried to give it some smoke flavour, what was amazing. Even when grilling above a light blaze, just put a small piece of a thin limb into the blaze and close the lid for a few minutes. I used parts of an old plum tree from our garden, but I guess that many trees will do the trick.
At the second test I was even a bit more brave and tried to smoke a beer can chicken. The temperature of this chicken is 160°C. So it seemed to be a perfect match for my little smoker project. I bought a fresh chicken from the market, as I want to have a good feeling, that it didn't have to suffer so much. Then I used a very basic rub and placed it on a chicken holder and filled some dark beer into it.
Note, that I didn't use a beer can, though the dish is named after it. The sealing of the cans is usually not resistant against such high temperatures, as well as it isn't that healthy, I guess. Therefore please use such a device which is really cheap, and worth it's money!
The result was amazing. It was by far not the best chicken that I have ever eaten, but I blame the rub for that ;)
The amazing thing was, that it was totally well done, but the outer meat was smoky and red.
Later I learned, that this is a natural effect of the smoke. And you really encounter this effect very often when using hot smoke over a longer time.
