Stove Top Smokers

Stove top smokers are an easy and safe way to add great smoked flavor to foods without leaving the kitchen. These smokers work on the principle of dry roasting. Use it for meat, seafood, vegetables and poultry.

Some stove top smokers can also be used as a steamer making them a nice dual use kitchen item. You can find a good box style model for under fifty bucks, larger kettle style models are more expensive.

These products are particularly useful to Northerners during winter. No battling freezing temperatures to get you smoked food fix.

Basic Operation

 Wood dust or chips are placed in the base of the smoker. A drip tray is placed over the base. The food rack goes over the drip tray and holds the food while smoking. By adding a little water with herbs or spices to the drip pan you can  add flavor to your food. When placed on the heat source the wood is "dry roasted" releasing the smoking flavor. Not a lot of wood is used. Follow the directions and you will do fine.    

Helpful Tips

• Only the dust will work in the stove top smoker
• Start out with a couple ounces of wood powder only
• DO NOT MOISTEN THE DUST!
• The smoker cooks slower on electric stove-tops
• When using an electric cooking time will need to be increased. 5-10 minutes.
• The stove top smoker does not work on electric smooth-top stoves.

A word on Wood

Like any other smoker the wood you use in your stove top model will influence the taste of the food being smoked. Here is a quick guide.

Alder - mild - seafood, poultry Apple - fruity sweet - pork, poultry, fish, lamb, game Cherry - rich and fruity - duck, poultry, game Corncob - slightly sweet - poultry, pork, shellfish, vegetables Hickory - strong, hearty - bacon, pork ribs, turkey, chicken, fish, beef Oak - slightly milder than hickory - beef, cheese, vegetables, fish, shellfish, poultry, lamb, pork Maple - mildly smoky and sweet - poultry, ham, game meats, cheese,

So there you have it. Consider purchasing an inexpensive, yet very effective stove top smoker for tackling those small smoking jobs right in the kitchen.

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