Scandinavian Hillbilly Smoker

On my new favorite cooking show  New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad   In episode # 212, Learning to Smoke,  Andreas rigs up a woodstove connected to a small refrigerator to smoke some shrimp and sardines. Here on the farm you never know what you might find on the junk pile waiting to be re-purposed.  In this case it’s a old Hobart commercial dishwasher.  It was too heavy for one person to put on the truck, so I called my lawyer.  Skeptical at first, he helped get it on the truck.  Once in the barnyard and the electrics were thrown out and he had a beer in hand he started to see the beauty of this project. Just to be safe he called the bank president in on the job. We needed more beer and time to cogitate anyway. The bank president arrived and laughed for a long time. After he he settled down he too came around and started tearing the plumping out of thing.   Funny thing about the Hobart commercial dishwasher is that it's like it was made to be a smoker.  All stainless steel construction. Two chambers, counter-weighted door. The top even comes to a cone like chimney. The first incarnation of this hillbilly smoker involved a hot plate and cast iron pan for the wood chips. This worked very well until the hot plate burn out.  

While having a beer at my lawyer’s house he says 'Have you seen New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad?' I had given him the book Kitchen of Light a number of years ago but had not seen the show. And there it was in episode #212--the answer to the burned out hot plate. In the barn I had no less than three small wood stoves to choose from. I went for the cute, short one.  I had my lawyer’s father-in-law, a real handy guy,  make me a 24” x 8” plate with a 6” hole in the center for the duct pipe.  That’s worth two smoked chickens,  isn’t it?  Applewood in the stove and good to go. So keep watching TV and drinking beer.