JUDITH AISTHORPE
ALOVE of smoked meats prompted two Darwin men to start up a business in their workshop creating smokers. Smoked meat has burst onto the food scene in recent years. But the process of smoking meat has been around for thousands of years.
It was originally used as a way to preserve foods but these days a smoker is used to give a cut of meat a distinct woody smoked flavour.
Jamie Sealey and Ben Proctor who own a fabricating business decided to make themselves their own meat smoker.
They quickly realised there was a market for them and in the past year they have custom built 25 smokers through their business Meatbox Smokers.
“We’ll custom build them to what people want. If people want them built into a frame, trolley or trailer we will custom make it,” Mr
Proctor said.
“Most of the guys that like them are keen on smoking meats and are happy to buy them.”
He said it takes about a week to make a smoker depending on what the customer wants.
They are all made using heavy steel pipe, which Mr Proctor said means the smoker is built to last.
He said there was a growing community of people who were into smoking meats and other things and were after well-made smokers.
He said their product was built to be a reverse flow smoker, which is not often what commercially sold smokers are built to be.
He said their set up meant the chimney was on the other end of the smoker which produced a more even heat distribution throughout.
He said flavoured woods such as cherry, oak and hickory wood were used to flavour meats while a wood such as ironbark was used as the heat source.
He said if you were really creative you could use wine barrels as the flavoured wood.
Smoking meat is a labour of love as the process can take up to eight hours.
“It’s a low and slow process. You can cook some meats for seven to eight hours and it’s completely different to what you would get out of an oven,” he said.
He said a wide range of meats could be smoked including beef ribs, brisket, gourmet sausages, burgers and even crocodile.