I recently "converted" my
grill into a smoker.
I added a thermometer, a water tub, and a wire basket to hold the smaller coals. It's a smaller platform than most smokers, but to feed my family, I don't need a massive smoker. (And, as a plus, "converting" back to a grill is painless and I still have a thermometer. I'll see if I can get a picture of the set up- $8 for a
thermometer, $2 for a small pan (it was a small roaster) and $1 for a wire basket from goodwill, means for $11 and I now have a smoker/grill)
I tried ribs for my first attempt, using the 3-2-1 method.* (I was actually 2-2-1 because I used baby-back ribs instead of spare ribs.)
As I had more space, I also smoked 6 chicken breasts and decided to do 2-2-1 with 4 of them and two that I just smoked for 5 hours.
Difficulties:
Getting a small amount of charcoal ready in my chimney was new. I had to use three newspapers to get it fully started for just 8-10 coals.
I can clearly use a lot less water in the pan- it was more than half full when I was done and it spilled quite a bit as I opened to add coals.
It was struggle keeping the right temperature- when I added coals, the temp dropped to 150 for a some time, so I opened up the air flow until it caught, but then the temperature spiked to 250 for a while and I closed it down. It took significant amount of time for the temperature to drop back down to 220. I clearly need more practice to get it right.
Results:
Despite the struggles, the results were amazing. Even before the last hour, the ribs were nearly falling off the bones. The chicken breasts from 2-2-1 were so tender and juicy. The other 2 were a little drier on the outside, but still very good. The apple wood chunks I used provided a lot of smoke and flavor. And, as a rack of ribs and 6 chicken breasts were far more than we could eat, we now have smoked chicken breasts to use for salads, chicken fettuccine, wraps, etc... all through the week.
My wife is completely on board with me getting more practice at smoking. I'm hoping to be able to do a turkey at Thanksgiving. (Yes, a whole turkey ought to fit in the grill. I may have to split it, but I think it should work well.)
*3-2-1= 3 hours at 220, 2 hours wrapped in foil with a little apple juice or beer, 1 hour out of the foil, slathered with BBQ sauce.