wholly cow man!! saved my cook!!!
 

I have a new Ok Joe and have a few cooks under my belt, I feel that I know it well enough to try a brisket. I have done a few on other smokers.

Well....

Fire up my pit this morning about 7 am, use the same routine I have in the other cooks.

taking forever to heat up. Ok, just ride with it.

Got it to about 225, decided to go ahead and put the meat on, I am shooting for 250f or so

then disaster hits. Could not get it any hotter, all I was getting was white ugly smoke. After fiddling with it for a while, as my heart is sinking, I realise that I am not getting a flame, I am using lump to get it going then going to sticks.

now its at 200 and going nowhere fast

Man what the hell is going on??

Then it dawns on me that I am not using the same firewood that I used on the other cooks, this was from my wood pile for my fireplace. Last cook I used bundled wood from Kroger, it actually worked great.

So I pull that wood off and put more of the kroger wood I had left over. Flames right away...

EUREKA!!! the the smoker is happily chugging along at 260f, just like before.

Ahhhh time for a beer...I can reeeeeelax now

man I was worried for awhile there!!!

no more of that firewood for the smoker!! that wood is kinda old an must have been wet, I did put it on my firebox and it was smoldering when I put it in, did not matter....

Good lesson learned without a total train wreck. I'm pretty much only using lump and/or kiln dried hickory splits to get the right temps & pretty smoke.

yeah, I learned from that!

Until I can come up with a good wood supplier, the Kroger stuff will do.

With spring coming I am sure they will stop selling it soon, I may have to stock up a bit

its nice, kiln dried hardwood, mostly oak, ash, and maple

If you have a favorite restaurant or pizza joint that features a wood fired oven, ask them who their supplier is. I only suggest that because my supplier, Southern Fuel Wood in Newberry, Florida (the have a neat web site) mentioned his largest market for kiln dried hardwoods are those kinds of restaurants.

hey great idea!!!

thanks!!!

I see wood on CL, but am leery of it, especially now. The wood I had trouble with looked perfectly fine to me.

Still cruising at 260f on the Kroger wood!!!

While you're relaxing lets see some pics. Working on finishing my LyfeTyme smoker project this weekend. Looking for inspiration.

well sure bud!!!

glad you asked!!!

I keep firewood for my firepit outside, but my smoking wood is stored in the garage. If your wood was stored outside, it may have had too much moisture in it.

CD

exactly!!!!

I have never had a pit that used nothing but wood before about a month ago...

Good that you did not lose the cook that would have sucked

yeah, thanks!

I do have a WSM clone with a blower on it, I could have fired it up and cook it on that, but, yeah, that would have sucked!!!

...still churning along at 250f...

Nice pr0n!

Do you not worry about bringing in termites with it? Just moved to the cuty from my 6 acre place out in the country, so I'm trying to figure the best place to store it as well....