Blue smoke question

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Bob E Que

Knows what a fatty is.
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I know that is my goal. What does it look like?

Or a better question, what shouldn't the smoke look like?

it is too breezy here to take a picture of what I have now.
it is a light, wispy smoke that smells of hickory/apple and spices. I have also started putting a bit of Royal Oak into the smouldering chips too


Will the 'bad smoke' have a distinctive odour?
 
Bob E Que said:
Will the 'bad smoke' have a distinctive odour?
Click to expand...

Yes. Cup your hand over the smoke stack for a few seconds. Smell your hand. If smells bad, so does your smoke. It should have a sweet, pleasant smell.
 
It has a sweet smell. After washing my hands, with just water, there is a light creosote smell, fragrant but not bitter.
 
it looks blue

eddieclassicII-032.jpg


goodbadanduglysmoke.jpg
 
Thanks.

Judging by the BGE pics, i have good. it went to bad/ugly once when I my wood chips flared up, choked the vent and got it back to good.
I need to work on my volume. I don't get nearly as much smoke as the offset pics.
 
Practice, Grasshopper! Try for as little smoke as you can get. Use chunks instead of chips, and leave the top/exhaust vent fully open and adjust with the intake. As long as your wood is burning, you will have smoke flavor. If you look at the wood and it is smoking, you need more air.
 
Bob e que...............:)-

Small smoker,small chunks. Power to the woodburners. Charcoal sux...:rolleyes:
 
Yes, more smoke is not the goal unless you like a really over-powering smoke flavor. That offset shot is a great example of the ends of the spectrum. RTD has as nice an set of examples as I have seen.
 
BigAl said:
Yes.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I didn't know that. Now I'm off to search the forum for "blue smoke" to learn more about it... :-D

Every time I've used my offset smoker, it smokes like the one on the left and the food has a strong smoke taste...:shock:
 
DSC05386JPGxx.jpg


0eebb44d.jpg


The ideal smoke is different with each type of cooker, and it depends on the fuel you are using. All cookers have a sweet spot with respect to the vent settings, so the settings that work with one, may be wrong for another. Like Rick, I can get some pretty smoke from my Egg. When he sent me that second picture, Scott said "you almost wonder if it's even there".​

Kevin is correct in that you need to smell the smoke, I need to try the residual method on the hand he mentioned. One word of caution when cooking direct, raised direct or very raised direct..... the smoke will almost always be white because of the fat dripping onto the coals. Here is where smell really comes into play more than sight.​
 
I think you will benefit from letting your fire burn down a bit more, for starters, use a little less wood and see if you can get the smoke calmed down in the first hour or so of cooking. Most of your smoke flavor is gonna happen in the first hour or so of the cook. Once you have the temps up to 145 internal, there is no point to creating smoke, a dry clean heat is best. If you close that top damper or choke down the fire too much, you create bitter tasting smoke, not good.
 
I was taught to really dry out your wood before use. I have been throwing logs in my warmer box on my Lang. Is this needed? The wood is already seasoned.
 
So far, in my 1 year of smoking with my off set...the best thing i learned about cooking is that you dont need a lot of smoke...that blue smoke, that light wispy look, is so important. when i first started i would dump on the apple heavy, get thick plumes, and you can taste it. Practice makes almost perfect.
 
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