PolyScience Smoking Gun?

Posted by johngl

Feeling a little bit like I was suffering a 1976 flashback — wandering the isles of Sid’s Head Shop in Des Moines and laughingly noticing a device called a “power hitter” — I returned home yesterday to find that most glorious spousal unit had picked up one of these:

This Smoking Gun? is produced by the good folks of PolyScience, makers of fine laboratory equipment. It even comes with a long rubber hose and shredded wood chips in two flavors: hickory and applewood. Batteries, too, were included. I was jonesing.  All I needed was something to smoke.

Ummmm…I mean I was anxiously looking around for something to which to apply some smoke flavoring. Yes, that’s the ticket.

I eyeballed the rotisserie chicken. I cut a small hole in the side of the cover and inserted the hose.

I lovingly loaded the bowl with a pinch of hickory chips and applied some flame.

Flicking on the switch, I soon had the chamber spewing smoke all over the place.

This took less than a minute.  Hickory smoke wafted through the house and I’m a little surprised the smoke detectors didn’t start sounding the alarm.

I quickly turned off the unit and allowed the smoking chamber to clear.

Slicing off some of the chicken breast that was directly exposed to the smoke…

I was pretty impressed that it had reasonably good smoke flavor.  I guess those carcinogens stick to whatever they can find.

Seriously though, for such a quick process, this worked amazingly well.

Given the success of this quick experiment, I can’t wait to try it out on say some prime rib or something.  A little smoky flavor couldn’t hurt, could it?

The ultra-small jars of wood chips seem a little cheesy, but since I have both a peach and fig tree in my back yard, I’m looking forward to trying out those woods as well.  Maybe even some grape vine.

I wonder how well it works with herbs?