How to Build a Smoker in the Wild

Smoking is an alternative method of meat preservation in areas where refrigeration is unreliable or unavailable. You may need to build a smoker out of native or easily packable materials if you harvest a big game animal on an extended hunting trip or in a wilderness survival situation.

Things You'll Need

  • Three or four stout poles, one to two inches diameter and seven to eight feet long
  • Sharp knife
  • Steel wire
  • Shovel
  • Something heat-resistant to cover the smoker frame
  • Hardwood sticks
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Instructions

    • 1
      Campfire rendering wood to embers

      Choose a spot for your smoker and an associated fire for burning wood into embers. It should be where you can keep an eye on it, clear of overhanging branches and other flammable materials and on bare dirt. It can be your campfire.
      Start the fire, if it is not already burning, and add hardwood sticks.

    • 2

      Clear a spot of all leaves, sticks, rocks and other material and place poles in a tipi frame. Fasten together at the top with steel wire.

    • 3

      Wrap wire around the legs of the frame about chest high, then weave wire across the span to create a grid for the meat. If you don't have enough wire, you may use green hardwood sticks for the grid.
      Depending on how much meat you have to smoke, add a second and third grid above and below the first one.

    • 4

      Cut meat into strips about one inch wide and a quarter inch thick and lay it on the grid. Use a sharp, clean knife. Make sure the pieces do not touch each other nor protrude outside the framework.

    • 5

      Shovel coals into the circle of ground formed by your tipi framework. Add more hardwood to replace coals you burn.

    • 6

      Cover the outside of the frame with whatever heat-resistant material you have available. Examples are sheet metal, plywood, aluminum foil or cotton canvas. If you lack any of these, you may lay sticks around the frame to close the gaps between the poles, then shovel a layer of dirt on these sticks.
      Leave a gap at the bottom for adding coals and for air ingress and at the top for smoke to escape. Also leave an easily-opened gap at the level of the grids, so you may check the meat.

    • 7

      Check the coals often and add fresh ones as the older ones burn out. Check the meat every six to eight hours. The meat is done when it is dark and breaks when bent. This usually takes 24 to 48 hours.