I would think that you'd end up baking the item, not smoking it. You need to get enough heat to the wood chips to get them to smoulder, without directly heating the item to be smoked.
All of the times I've seen people on cooking shows attempt to rig up a smoker like you descibe, they've done it stove top, not in the oven, and it tended to be in a pan a little heavier duty than a disposable aluminum tray -- it looked more like a deep hotel pan to me, and I don't think they vented it 'til they were done.
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That being said, I still occassionally grill outside in the winter. Okay, I admit, it's usually because the power's out, but I did it last weekend as a favor to my neighbor so he could serve steaks to his wife and mother-in-law for the day before Valentine's day ... in that case, it was actually fairly warm (maybe 45-50°F), but I've also done it when we've been buried in snow and ice.
The important thing about winter grilling is to keep the lid down, and not check on things too often. For long and slow cooking (I think I was trying to finish a stew), I've rigged up things to insulate the grill ... although, I managed to cook one of my leather welding aprons last year.
But for cold smoking ... you're all set ... you can get get insulation blankets for your smoker, and then you just need to keep the fire going in the hot box.
Tremmors and Rincewind42 are both right, but it does sound strange that an hour or two in a smoker would make the bones that soft. Maybe Mabel pre-cooks them, possibly using a pressure cooker?
Best Answer
Recipes for smoked meat are usually mostly about the preparation and then a note about target temperatures. These things will not change; the air will just be heated differently.
With grilling there is quite a bit of difference between charcoal and other heaters. Flavor and the fact that charcoal can get much hotter are the two big differences. Neither of these are important for smoking, in my opinion. You don't want it to get hot at all and any flavor the charcoal might have provided is wholly eclipsed by the flavor of the smoke itself.
One advantage of charcoal smokers is that they are cheaper and you can smoke much larger quantities of meat- you just need a big enough barrel to hold it all.
You can use your recipes as is- you just won't have to check your fire all the time to maintain your target temps.