How do guys with these big wood-eating smokers get the "blue smoke"?

During my RF build I fired it up to check things out, knowing the air flow was key. In this picture it is running at 235 and smoke is barely visible. Just gotta play with it and get to know your pit.
 

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thin blue, pretty much invisible smoke on my Lang 84, chugging along at 250*
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Small hot fire, exhaust wide open, pre-heat splits on firebox. Fire management was the hardest thing for me to learn in BBQ. One more thing, don't fight your pit. Every pit has a sweet spot where a clean fire, with thin blue smoke, equals a specific temp. For mine it's 300. If I try to cook at 225 on my stickburner I'll have dirty smoke and fluctuating temps. If I cook at 300 it stays much more consistent and produces almost invisible smoke. Know Thy Pit.
 
I start with a chimney of hot coals and add one stick per 60-90 minutes after that. Air flow is the key. Also, when I add a stick, I keep the firebox door open for a few minutes to ensure adequate air flow to the new wood. Also, I put the wood on the firebox before adding to the firebox. This warms it up.

A small, hot fire will get you thin blue smoke every time
 
Back to the op, to me, the absolute best smell on earth is the smell in-the-air at about 6am - 7:30am at a large BBQ contest. Sweet blue in the air, with nearly done BBQ flavors mixed in. It's heavenly. Of course, there's always one or two jokers who let the fire go out and they're loading up on wood and billowing out the smoke... :)
 
I didn't even know blue smoke was a thing! I'll have to check my Weber kettle next bbq.
 
I have a 250 gallon offset and use just wood.. with about a 1/4 bag of charcoal to start... and mine puts out thin blue smoke.. damn near invisible.. just cooking with wood.. small clean fire..
 
This past weekend I had my first stick burn experience. I had loaded up my basket with coals and a stick of apple, well, my pit wandered up to 350° and i fought it back to 300°. This burned through my coals and wood quickly, but the blue smoke was rolling. I didn't want to throw coals on (it was a 10 hour butt cook) so I threw a stick on top of the coals and the blue smoke rolled. I did that one more time with 2 smaller sticks (these were limb cuts) to finish off the cook, it ran around 300° the rest of the day.

The FIL was over and he helped pull the super tender butt and he mentioned that there was not fat in it (he butchers pigs for a living) and that I must have rendered it out. Then he mumbled for a while as he ate the awesome bark. He was beside himself. We all loved it. I will be doing my cooks this way from now on. You never stop learning.
 
key to stickburners is that we actually encourage our sticks to catch on fire.. as in live flame.. not smolder.. like you might do in your UDS or WSM we want a live fire on the log.. and when that log burns down.. to coals.. we add another log.. we have a large chamber to heat up and keep hot.. this is the only way to consistently get that temp up and keep it up.. mine eats abt a quarter split an hour.. and takes about 45 minutes to get to cooking temp in the summer.. and about 1 hour and 15 minutes in the winter..
 
I am no comp pro and only began using a wood burner a year ago. I use a used Jambo with a fixed air shutter that is never touched. I don't seem to have any smoke problem. I start with half a chimney or so of hot coals in the left corner. then sticks of wood (preferably barkless and short) added every 45 mins to an hour. I never understood how it can burn that well without fooling with the air intake but it seems to work flawlessly as long as the wood is dry.
 
i have burned fresh cut fruit woods with bark and had the same result.. those that were smoldering were not burning the wood cleanly.. probly had the firebox overcrowded.. and air closed off..
 
Just did a quick skim through the posts here - I may have missed it but I don't think there's a mention yet of preheating wood - which is a very good thing to do. Just set yer splits on the firebox as they wait their turn - might need to turn 'em once in a while. I've had 'em go up in flames sitting on the box. Occasionally there will be a little white smoke when adding a split, but it goes away quickly and is nothing to worry about.

Also, just to add, I keep all vents all the way open all the time and control temps by size of fire.
 
I thought it was smoke that got the smoke flavor or "smoke ring" in the meat?? :confused:
 
^^^^^ Misinformation.. when we are putting out thin blue smoke.. we are smoking.. white billowing smoke will make your meat black and dirty tasting.. i get a solid smoke ring 100 percent of the time i cook on my offset with hickory logs..
 
Soooo damn glad I found this website :-D
 
gtr said:
Just did a quick skim through the posts here - I may have missed it but I don't think there's a mention yet of preheating wood - which is a very good thing to do. Just set yer splits on the firebox as they wait their turn - might need to turn 'em once in a while. I've had 'em go up in flames sitting on the box. Occasionally there will be a little white smoke when adding a split, but it goes away quickly and is nothing to worry about.

Also, just to add, I keep all vents all the way open all the time and control temps by size of fire.
Click to expand...

since I insulated my firebox the top doesn't get hot enough anymore to start the wood smoking

Now I will just put a split in the firebox on the opposite side of the fire about 10 mins before putting it in the fire. Luckily my firebox is big enough to allow that

That works real good for me
 
Dang guys, thanks for all the awesome info! I'm really grateful for sacking up and asking the question. I was totally expecting the :mad2:
 
Great thread!!!

I'll agree with all of the above. We cook on a massive off-set, reverse flow, stickburner and it is all about having a small hot fire with good air flow to get that pretty blue smoke you're looking for. A lot of people will "pre-heat" their wood; just be careful to not let it catch on fire before it's in the box :). We keep ours near the firebox so it's not going in "cold", so to speak, and ensure that no food goes in till we get the temp ideal so we can run sweet blue.
 
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