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Q-talk *ON TOPIC ONLY* QUALITY ON TOPIC discussion of Backyard BBQ, grilling, equipment and outdoor cookin' . ** Other cooking techniques are welcomed for when your cookin' in the kitchen. Post your hints, tips, tricks & techniques, success, failures, but stay on topic and watch for that hijacking.


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Old 06-27-2022, 05:55 AM   #1
sandro
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Default On burning a clean fire (Mad Scientist BBQ) and discussion

https://youtu.be/IAoes7HifIk


Moving forward with the "BBQ YouTube" topic, Jeremy shared this video last night. I'm glad to see that the mantra of burning a clean fire all the time at all costs is slowly but surely waning once Jonny from Goldee's openly stated that there is no such truth, and there never was

Firstly, I feel it's important to give credit where credit is due: it's not an everyday thing that you see people literally admitting to being wrong without beating around the bush and without adding justifications

Secondly, I (and likely many others) can absolutely confirm that, at least when cooking on offset smokers, BBQ produced with a dirtier / smokier fire just plain tastes better, no point in denying so

Having had people like Franklin himself promote burning the cleanest fire at all times for years meant that people like myself would spend 12 hours chasing temps and the color of the smoke coming out of the stack. I'd get concerned at the slightest hint of a dirty fire, walk up to the firebox, and shuffle things around to make it clean again. For half a day. It was not fun, not enjoyable, and outright unpleasant. Once I did away with digital probes and clean fire mantras the BBQ I produced tasted 10x better and I enjoyed every session 10x as much

I once tried to cook a turkey breast with the dirtiest, nastiest white-to-yellow smoke I could muster, and not only did the food taste "just fine" (although I would rather had it less smoky) but to run such a nasty fire for 2 hours frankly required three times the effort of "just letting it be" and let it do its thing where the smoke starts whitish for a few minutes once a new split is added, clears up to thin-blue for half an hour, and goes clean for the last stage of combustion

Ever since I stopped caring about how clean the smoke looked my BBQ tastes so much better. What's your take?
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Old 06-27-2022, 06:42 AM   #2
Biloxidman
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At first. Tried to let the smoke get “blue” but got lazy and just started the lump with an alcohol soaked cotton ball, let it go for 1/2 hour, then added the meat regardless of what the smoke was doing cuz it was time to cook! Never had any problems. Of course we both like smoked anything.
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Old 06-27-2022, 08:29 AM   #3
Fooball
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I shoot for mainly clean, but I don't worry about heating splits or leaving the fire box door open until they've ignited.

That gives me some dirty smoke to mix with mainly clean.

Years ago when I bought an OKJ Highland and knew nothing about how to run it, I thought the more smoke the better! Like Jeremy's level 3. That meat sucked until I learned what I was doing wrong.

Too much white smoke is a problem for sure. A mix is ok by me as long as it's no more than like 75/25 mix clean to dirty.

I'm wondering how many pages this thread will go?
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Old 06-27-2022, 11:43 AM   #4
Dustin Dorsey
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I think there's a semantics issue here because actual dirty smoke should be avoided. What some people are calling dirty is just a thin white smoke. In fact if you see it in the right light you'd call it thin blue smoke. Somewhere along the line this got confused with the condition of almost no smoke.
For a certain type of brain we can chase that to the point of obsession but if I have a thin white smoke I don't sweat it. If it's heavy white smoke I'll tweak my fire.
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Old 06-27-2022, 12:25 PM   #5
sandro
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dustin Dorsey View Post
Somewhere along the line this got confused with the condition of almost no smoke.
You're right—I wonder where that came from originally. I know Franklin advocates the cleanest fire possible in his book and classes, and of course most people on BBQ YouTube (I used to as well). Curiously enough, none of those BBQ YouTube people actually ran a restaurant, and those who do (or did) only advocated for the classic thin-blue smoke and clean fire, which is not "just heat waves like a mirage" out of the stack
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Old 06-27-2022, 06:21 PM   #6
Back9Q
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Start fire….throw on log… close door….drink beer…repeat

Clean,dirty,50/50 im usually too lazy to get up and adjust


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Old 06-27-2022, 06:37 PM   #7
SmokinAussie
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Black smoke is dirty smoke.

Honestly whenever you add anything to a fire, like even when I add trimmed fruit wood, you get a change in the color of the smoke as those volatiles get burned up and that does add to the "BBQ". I do prefer sweet blue smoke for most of the time, but never freak out when adding a wood chunk or two through the cook that give you some white smoke.
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Old 06-27-2022, 09:18 PM   #8
kevinstaggs
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I think Mr. Yoder is spot-on, but I also think that most experienced backyard & comp cooks figure this out pretty quick. Like most things (lets take golf for example) its easy to get lost in the minutia. After all, we are trying to do our best and are rarely satisfied...

There's always another brisket or round of golf. Play on...
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Old 06-27-2022, 09:35 PM   #9
pjtexas1
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Lots of us have responded to guys wanting more smoke flavor from their stick burners with this comment...

"Mix in some greenish sticks". Not trying to be "that guy" but this isn't breaking news. [emoji1787]

Also... I'm upset with the op for making me watch a YouTube bbq video. But I'll probably be OK in a few days. 1 and 2 are pretty obvious good smoke. I can't imagine thinking 3 is gonna taste good.

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Old 06-27-2022, 10:17 PM   #10
oldgfbbq
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+1 for Kevin's post. Oh wait, there is a button for that
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