Question About Too Much Smoke

Google Jim Minion Methods...
He has helped me immensly with his research and practice on Q.

I think that they are taliking about too much as in too thick of smoke you want a Thin Blue coming out of that stack. So when you are combing charcole and wood is alot different then us Stick Burners.

I have found it tough to get that thin blue smoke coming out of my UDS .

If your oversmoking in a UDS, your doing something wrong.
I think its more of a case of bad fuel than to much smoke.

DaveT said:

I have found it tough to get that thin blue smoke coming out of my UDS .

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TBS on a drum isin't always going to happen.
Once those fats get to rendering and dripping on the coals, your gonna get quite a lot of white smoke......more like a steam, thats normal. :biggrin:

Back to the original question as I read it, and it is an interesting one .....

I think that a clean burning stick fire does NOT translate to too much smoke. Remarkably, a brisket spending 12 hours in clean 'stick burning' smoke often has less 'smoke' than one that spent 6 hours (and then 6 in foil) in a vertical coal smoker, to my palette. I have attributed this, as stated above, to the relatively high air fed fire that a stickburner might use, as opposed to the intentionally stifled fire we use in a controlled vertical.

I also think it has less to do with coal vs. wood, and more to do with the nature of the fire control. (I guess, in a sense, I am disagreeing with you bull).

The above is just my opinion, it is clear I may not know what I am talking about :icon_blush:. I am also not dis-crediting verticle coal smokers or the controlled fire methods people use with them. In fact, it's how I generally cook!

Huh?????????

WineMaster said:

Huh?????????

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Let me explain it this way:

It is not too much Merle Haggard compared to the Johnny Cash ratio that leads to an OD of Willie Nelson flavor. If you have enough Jerry Jeff Walker, use all the Merle you want.

Gmoney is correct....it's the nature of the fire. The only time I get thick smoke is on initial start up of my offset. Once you have a nice bed of coals (about 45-1hr for me), you're good to go.

G$ said:

I also think it has less to do with coal vs. wood, and more to do with the nature of the fire control. (I guess, in a sense, I am disagreeing with you bull).

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Please feel free to disagree with me, not going to hurt my feelings whatsoever.

I run a very pure light blue smoke on my offset.
I still believe my ribs have too much smoke.
I believe the Minion 3-2-1 method have merit, trying to tweak my ribs here.

All I know is that I enjoy my ribs more cooked on my little electric Cookshack than I do off my Klose offset.

I dont foil ribs on my electric, I do now to reduce the smoke content on my ribs.

Thats what this forum is about to pass along different opinions and ideas.

DaveT said:

I have found it tough to get that thin blue smoke coming out of my UDS .

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The "Minion Method"...FYI...

• [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica] Place a small number of hot coals on top of a full charcoal chamber of unlit briquettes.[/FONT]​
• [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica] Using the bottom vents, carefully control the amount of air entering the cooker to keep the fire burning low and steady.[/FONT]​
• [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]The unlit fuel catches fire gradually throughout the cooking session, resulting in long burn times of up to 18 hours, depending on weather conditions.[/FONT]​

Bbq Bubba said:

TBS on a drum isin't always going to happen.
Once those fats get to rendering and dripping on the coals, your gonna get quite a lot of white smoke......more like a steam, thats normal. :biggrin:

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Truth...:biggrin:

G$ said:

Let me explain it this way:

It is not too much Merle Haggard compared to the Johnny Cash ratio that leads to an OD of Willie Nelson flavor. If you have enough Jerry Jeff Walker, use all the Merle you want.

Click to expand...

Huh...???

G$ said:

Back to the original question as I read it, and it is an interesting one .....

I think that a clean burning stick fire does NOT translate to too much smoke. Remarkably, a brisket spending 12 hours in clean 'stick burning' smoke often has less 'smoke' than one that spent 6 hours (and then 6 in foil) in a vertical coal smoker, to my palette. I have attributed this, as stated above, to the relatively high air fed fire that a stickburner might use, as opposed to the intentionally stifled fire we use in a controlled vertical.

I also think it has less to do with coal vs. wood, and more to do with the nature of the fire control. (I guess, in a sense, I am disagreeing with you bull).

The above is just my opinion, it is clear I may not know what I am talking about :icon_blush:. I am also not dis-crediting verticle coal smokers or the controlled fire methods people use with them. In fact, it's how I generally cook!

Click to expand...

^^^^^^^

G$'s answer can't be any more accurate. Its dead on.

its a matter of controlling smoke density on a stickburner. With my stickburners I can go from a heavier white smoke to sweet clear blue in under a minute. When cooking for my wife and daughter, you will never see any smoke coming out of the chimney, just clear heat.... and the food has a wood roasted flavor, with little smoke. When cooking for myself, or a backyard party, I will go a little blue coming out and layer on some heavier smoke. Its all in fire control.

This can be done with the vertical charcoal pits, but i have found that this can have an effect on temperature and you will have to factor in some recovery time when laying on layers of smoke in between heat cycles. But sweet blue, or clear heat, or smokey white can be attained with any of the pits once you master its fire control and the pits draft characteristics.


IMO, when comparing the vertical cabinets to the stickburners, the SB will give the cleanest smoke and better depth of flavor.


(Not taking away from the uprights, I have those also. I use both pits based on what I feel like doing that day)


on edit.. Disclaimer..... By verticals, i was thinking WSMs and insulated cabinet smokers. I forgot u were asking about the UDS.. not sure if this holds true for those... i never cooked on one..

Yet..

AlbuQue said:

I hear people talk about using too much wood in the UDS and getting too much smoke in the meat. What about you guys that use stick burner smokers. Doesn't that automatically give the meat too much smoke. Just wondering.

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Since the offset stickburners are not as thermal efficient, they lose a lot of heat from the firebox to the food in the cabinet. This means that in the firebox you run a very hot fire that burns cleanly putting out thin blue.

If you try that kind of fire in a UDS you UDS will run much too hot because the food is directly over the coals. So you need a much cooler burning fire, meaning burning all wood may not be a good idea unless you want to refuel more frequently than charcoal.

The best rememdy (IMHO) for a UDS is using hardwood lump charcoal and just a few pieces of wood. The lump charcoal is basically preburned wood coals, and they put off really thin smoke you can actually taste in your food. The other wood pieces are there to make this flavor more pronounced.

I kind of asked a similar question in the Competition BBQ forum: Wood vs Charcoal. My question more related to too smoky flavor in competition food......I like the taste of the food cooked in my offset using all wood.
I mentioned that smoking on my Weber using charcoal and some small wood pieces was more smoky tasting than my full time stick burner. I think its related to the chamber size and small exhaust vent.

Yes....when first started the offset smokes like crazy. I give it 1.5 to 2 hours to come up to temp and by then it's burning cleanly.

Some things that I do:
- use dry seasoned hardwoods (I use oak/hickory/apple)
- remove the bark
- don't use too large a split
- I keep wood that's ready to go into the smoker on top of the firebox to pre-heat it (the on-deck circle) and I place 1 piece in the firebox away from the fire. The wood instantly starts blazing when you throw it in the fire. If you don't pre-heat the wood it may smoke a little before catching fire well enough.
- keep the fire alive......don't let it die down or get too sluggish or you will be playing catch-up, resulting in thickish smoke.
- at least for me, the offset takes a lot of babysitting. I'm probably checking the temp and wood every 30 to 45 minutes, and sometimes 20 minutes. If I was using charcoal I could probably get a little more rest, but I haven't tried this yet.
- leave exhaust wide open and adjust fire with intakes and/or wood quantity

Hope this helps some.

I like chit loads of smoke. Makes meat good.

Basically the same question was asked recently about using all wood in a UDS.

My reply is to use different kinds of woods for whatever smoke depth you want. Given a small & hot wood fire (meaning relatively complete combustion) most fruit woods produce less smoke depth than hickory or oak and such (which are nut woods).