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Creosote?

H

Hachie Qer

Guest
Okay, I've been reading and learning about 2 weeks now and I see creosote mentioned from time to time. So, my questions are:
What are the main causes? Too much lit fuel/shut down intakes?:icon_sick
Which smoker types are most prone to the problem?
How do you know if you are producing creosote? :icon_smil(smoke color?)
Basically I want to know all about what causes it and how to avoid it especially in a NBBD or similar offset horizontal.:confused:

TIA
 
In my limited experience it has always been caused by poor exhaust airflow. Trying to cook by controling the exhaust instead of controlling the intake air. Caused the smoke to build up inside the smoker and get stale before it could exhaust out.
 
I dont know, I only use my wsm for charcoal now,,,,,unclean fires? I always shoot for a white smoke, even with my long ago gave away offsets,,,,
 
Hachie q,
Are you from Texas?
And you admit you don't know know how to q...that's a first...:)

I can give you some tips on how to make cresote...
1 put food on pit before you start the fire.
2 leave food on pit while you drink a case of beer (time guidelines, chicken 6hrs, pork or beef 2 days....
3 soak firewood for 2 days in rain barrel, put in pit wet, if it doesnt drip apply more water with hose.
4 disregard advice above. practice with your pit and read everything you can on this site. someone said practice,eat,practice,eat,practice,eat.....
jon
 
jonboy said:
Hachie q,
Are you from Texas?
And you admit you don't know know how to q...that's a first...:)

I can give you some tips on how to make cresote...
1 put food on pit before you start the fire.
2 leave food on pit while you drink a case of beer (time guidelines, chicken 6hrs, pork or beef 2 days....
3 soak firewood for 2 days in rain barrel, put in pit wet, if it doesnt drip apply more water with hose.
4 disregard advice above. practice with your pit and read everything you can on this site. someone said practice,eat,practice,eat,practice,eat.....
jon
Click to expand...

That is very funny,,, that is what I did at first (no. 1) not knowing anything (more smoke= better right)!!!

I love the rest!!
 
Any smoker can cause this. The key thing to know is that a wood fire is a chemical reaction caused by heat+air+wood. It is not an actual thing itself, but is a chemical process of converting these three things into new things.

When wood is heated to a sufficient temperature in the presence of oxygen, it will break down. Notice I did not say "burn" burn is more of a laymans term for what is happening. What is really happening is the wood itself is being broken down into different compounds.

These compounds are ultimately solid or gaseous, and the gaseous compounds float away. What you call "fire" or "flames" is actually some of these gasses being released from the wood, which is not how most people envision them. These gasses just so happen to be combustible, and if there is enough air and heat present these gasses ignite causing the glowing flame you see. If there is not enough heat or air, then you may not see flames at all but instead just see "smoke" which is really just all of the unburnt gases and small particulates being carried away.

So, the first thing to know is, that a fire that is not burning well due to lack or air and/or heat is that it will make a thick smoke, and inside that smoke is a whole lot of chemicals (gases, particulates). A clean burning fire produces very little smoke, and therefore has fewer chemicals.

Wood fires produce hundreds of different chemicals, a great many of them hazardous to your health. Pretty much all of these bad chemicals can be burnt off though in a clean burning fire. So the way to think of this is, a clean burning fire producing a thin smoke is literally burning away the bad chemicals before they get to your food. A dirty fire, one producing thick smoke is going to put all that nasty stuff all over your food.

Interestingly enough, not only can you tell a good clean burning fire by the simple observation of thinner smoke, but the color is different too. A clean fire is a thin blue smoke, and dirty fire is a thick white smoke (or even yellow if really dirty). Here is a picture to demonstrate.
 

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jonboy said:
Hachie q,
Are you from Texas?
And you admit you don't know know how to q...that's a first...:)

I can give you some tips on how to make cresote...
1 put food on pit before you start the fire.
2 leave food on pit while you drink a case of beer (time guidelines, chicken 6hrs, pork or beef 2 days....
3 soak firewood for 2 days in rain barrel, put in pit wet, if it doesnt drip apply more water with hose.
4 disregard advice above. practice with your pit and read everything you can on this site. someone said practice,eat,practice,eat,practice,eat.....
jon
Click to expand...
Where did I say I don't know how to Que???:roll: I've done my share of queing for 20+ years and NEVER had a creosote problem!!! :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin: I was just wondering how you DO IT!!!!!!:grin:
 
Bigabyte's picture showing one pit with white dirty smoke along side of another pit with blue smoke should be a sticky.
 
bigabyte said:
Interestingly enough, not only can you tell a good clean burning fire by the simple observation of thinner smoke, but the color is different too. A clean fire is a thin blue smoke, and dirty fire is a thick white smoke (or even yellow if really dirty). Here is a picture to demonstrate.
Click to expand...

Thanks Bigabyte. That's the kind of answer I was looking for with all the technical details.:shock: I am a science buff, so I knew all that about the reaction, I just didn't know exactly what the evidence of a bad reaction should look like. It does seem counter intuitive that to add good smoke flavor to meat would require a fire that produces LESS visible smoke.:icon_shock1:
What are the common mistakes that lead to the wrong conditions?
 
The most common mistake, especially in offsets, is adding too much fuel and suffocating what may have been a clean burning fire. The heat in the firebox is greatly reduced as the energy is transferred into the unlit fuel. Also, if there is too much fuel you can restrict airflow in your firebox. An offset firebox should have a small clean burning fire in it. It is basically impossible to have a full firebox burn clean because there is not enough airflow able to come in to burn the fuel and the released gases at the same time (remember to account for the volume the gasses require to burn).

Another mistake some people make is closing down the exhaust. The exhaust should always be wide open. The gases released need to escape, you don't want them building up inside your cooker or else you will get thick deposits on your cooker walls and meat. I have never owned a cooker that I could not leave the exhaust wide open for any cooking session. If a smoker exists that does require this, then I would suggest it is a bad smoker design.

Another mistake you can make is at the beginning of the cooking session when you add lit coals to unlit fuel for the Minion method. If you add too much lit fuel at the beginning, more than the intakes/airflow can support, then the fire will slowly suffocate down to the level where it does get the proper airflow for it to burn. This results in an extended period of heavier smoke.

Any time your fire gets too hot and you reduce the air intake is going to cause heavier smoke because you are suffocating the fire to reduce it. The trick is to cook with the fire you create, and to create a clean burning fire that runs at the temp you want, and refuel appropriately to maintain it.
 
bigabyte said:
The most common mistake, especially in offsets, is adding too much fuel and suffocating what may have been a clean burning fire. The heat in the firebox is greatly reduced as the energy is transferred into the unlit fuel. Also, if there is too much fuel you can restrict airflow in your firebox. An offset firebox should have a small clean burning fire in it. It is basically impossible to have a full firebox burn clean because there is not enough airflow able to come in to burn the fuel and the released gases at the same time (remember to account for the volume the gasses require to burn).

Another mistake some people make is closing down the exhaust. The exhaust should always be wide open. The gases released need to escape, you don't want them building up inside your cooker or else you will get thick deposits on your cooker walls and meat. I have never owned a cooker that I could not leave the exhaust wide open for any cooking session. If a smoker exists that does require this, then I would suggest it is a bad smoker design.

Another mistake you can make is at the beginning of the cooking session when you add lit coals to unlit fuel for the Minion method. If you add too much lit fuel at the beginning, more than the intakes/airflow can support, then the fire will slowly suffocate down to the level where it does get the proper airflow for it to burn. This results in an extended period of heavier smoke.

Any time your fire gets too hot and you reduce the air intake is going to cause heavier smoke because you are suffocating the fire to reduce it. The trick is to cook with the fire you create, and to create a clean burning fire that runs at the temp you want, and refuel appropriately to maintain it.
Click to expand...

So, you're saying that with an offset firebox filled with fuel for a long burn, it's not possible to have the right conditions using the minion method or any other way? Only way is to refuel?
 
redaub said:
I never thought the mad scientist thing was meant to be taken literally. WOW!!
Click to expand...

With this level of knowledge, there is no wonder, why this is the BEST FARKIN forum, ever!!! Hats off to bigabyte! :eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap
 
Well, it's not absolute, but generally that way.

I have seen people post pics on forums before where they said the meat was nasty tasting and the smoke was thick. The pics posted showed how they added fuel to the firebox. I remember one in particular in a smoker similar to the ones in the pic earlier on this thread, where the charcoal and wood filled over 3/4 of the total volume of the firebox.:shock: It is difficult to imagine that much fuel burning cleanly in such a constrained environment, let alone sucking in enough air through the intakes.:lol:

I have a small offset similar to yours, and I use the Minion method every time. The first thing I did was raise the charcoal grates so there was about 6 inches clearance below, which also gave me more surface area for charcoal (double sweet). Yours may already be this way, but if not do yourself a favor and make this change. I took a perforated stainless steel paper plate holder which I bought from Ace Hardware and set it up in the hole between my firebox and cooker to keep flames from being able to leap in to the cooker. I have seen others do this same thing with a perforated pizza pan. With this in place, I would put the lit coals on the charcoal grate against that "baffle", or looking at it another way I put them on the grate and shoved them as close to the cooker chamber as i could with a fireplace shovel. Then I backfilled to the intakes with unlit charcoal and let the fire burn backwards toward the air intakes. I get consistent 90 minute burn periods with Royal Oak lump doing this. I would not add a really thick layer, just a good layer with decent coverage, probably about 3 inches thick or so. I would put 4 to 6 chunks (depending on size) on top of these coals evenly scattered from front to back and side to side. When it was time to refuel, I would shove all the remaining lit coals to the side nearest the cooking chamber, and backfill the same as before and put on some more wood chunks as before. I ran about 240-270 this way, with 90 minutes between refueling like clockwork.

Larger offset have larger and deeper fireoxes, and some have charcoal baskets designed for a snaking Minion method type burn, and they can go quite a while without refueling. For the smaller offsets though, you're gonna have to refuel.
 
Bigabyte, that is one hell of a good explanation. Thanks!
 
Hachie Qer said:
I was about to agree with you, but I googled it an sure enough there are different kinds of creosote, one of them being wood creosote produced by choking off the oxygen to a wood fire.
http://hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/creosote_from_wood_burning_causes_and_solutions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creosote
Click to expand...

I think we need re-read that.

"Wood creosote is created by high temperature treatment of beech and other woods." "Wood creosote is a colorless to yellowish greasy liquid with a smoky odor and burned taste."

If are smokers/Grills were full of creosote I believe we would be very Ill. I still believe it is a Carbon Build up.
 
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