Inspired by my brother-in-law Bill’s forays into the art of smoking meat, I built myself a smoker this weekend. My plan was to follow Alton Brown’s plans for a terracotta smoker made from a couple of large flower pots, a hot plate, and a pie plate to hold the wood. But I saw two issues with that design:

• You have to remove the meat and the cooking grate to add more wood.
• $50 in materials to build the thing? I figured I could come up with something cheaper.

And then it hit me: I’ve already got a made-for-the-outdoors, heat-proof box: my grill. I cranked the charcoal platform to its lowest position, and set up a hot plate ($11, including tax, at Walgreens) on it. Ran the cord out the side to an extension cord. Pie plate ($1 at Big Lots) full of wood chips on the hot plate. Meat on the grill above the pie plate. The coup de grace: my grill has a door in the front to add more coals, making it easy to add more wood chips without disturbing the meat or even opening the top. So for a mere $12, I had myself a working smoker.

We enjoyed some delicious proof-of-concept smoked pork chops for dinner tonight. They took about two hours and were delicious. More ambitious projects (whole chicken, pork butt) are in the works.