55 gallon UDS - overly smokey food!

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Mr.Tarquin Biscuit Barrel

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Hello everyone, I have been striking out bigtime with this smoker I have built. It has four 3/4 inch intakes on risers controlled by ball valves and what looks to be a 4 or 5" exhaust.

I built the charcoal basket as a 1 foot cube with 4" legs. I even welded legs,wheels and got a hinged closing top for it. Sounds great? Well, the trouble is that I have been getting really poor results as far as taste. A lot of it has been really smokey, like it survived a house fire.

Everything cooks on a grate about 1 foot from the top lid. I really need advice on what I have been doing wrong! I'll try to upload some pics.


I was thinking of not destroying a turkey this week. Please help! :icon_blush:
 

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Spiffy little cooker! Your exhaust is plenty big enough. I would agree with 4ever3, in that you must be choking the fire. I have no pipes on the intake, and I can make some great food with three holes. Make sure you let the cooker settle in to a groove, and at that point, the smoke should be lighter if you have a clean fire.
 
Mr.Tarquin Biscuit Barrel said:
I normally run royal oak lump charcoal for long smokes with pork buts at 200. Generally the valves are open about half way.
Click to expand...

Ditch the lump, lump needs lotta airflow and at 200 is just smoldering. Try Royal oak briquettes Kingsford competition or Stubbs briquettes and run 250 - 275 *with all four valves full open or close and see how that does........If you take the elbow’s and risers off and put the ball valve straight to the pipe nipples you should get up to Temp and then start closing them down and have 2 to 3 of them half open or so. Let it settle in and run 45 minutes before putting on meat.
 
@4ever3 -sort of disagree on the riser thing. Technically you are always "choking" a UDS fire- restricting how many coals are burning by being cheap with the air allowed in.

IF you have trouble hitting a specific temp (usually in the 300+ range) then risers can be pointed at as the culprit.

Super smokey food can be exhaust being sort of skimpy - or not waiting long enough to let your smoke get to the "non acrid/nasty" stage. ("if the smoke smells like an ashtray- don't put your meat on yet" is how one of the brethren put it (pjtexas1 maybe))

damp wood chunks can ding you too.

Good luck, brother.
 
your build is similar to mine. I have three 3/4 inch intakes and one additional on a riser with a ball valve. 2 intakes is about 275. I only burn lump as I can taste the raw burning charcoal. my grate also sits low inside the drum.

so the risers may restrict airflow but with them all open you shouled be good.

if I had to guess I'd say your problem is lack of air cooking at 200. that or too many wood chunks. try cooking at 250+ and see if that helps, maybe try a cook without wood chunks for a baseline. for poultry you need very little wood as is
 
SmittyJonz said:
Ditch the lump, lump needs lotta airflow and at 200 is just smoldering. Try Royal oak briquettes Kingsford competition or Stubbs briquettes and run 250 - 275 *with all four valves full open or close and see how that does........If you take the elbow’s and risers off and put the ball valve straight to the pipe nipples you should get up to Temp and then start closing them down and have 2 to 3 of them half open or so. Let it settle in and run 45 minutes before putting on meat.
Click to expand...

Sounds reasonable for the lump idea at such low temps. What if I was to use the lump at 300 - 400*? The risers are going in the parts bin.




Nuco59 said:
@4ever3 -sort of disagree on the riser thing. Technically you are always "choking" a UDS fire- restricting how many coals are burning by being cheap with the air allowed in.

IF you have trouble hitting a specific temp (usually in the 300+ range) then risers can be pointed at as the culprit.

Super smokey food can be exhaust being sort of skimpy - or not waiting long enough to let your smoke get to the "non acrid/nasty" stage. ("if the smoke smells like an ashtray- don't put your meat on yet" is how one of the brethren put it (pjtexas1 maybe))

damp wood chunks can ding you too.

Good luck, brother.
Click to expand...

300 can be hard to get, now that you mention it but I never really tried that hard at it.

Also, I have been known to be impatient when it comes to waiting for the smoker to chill. I have applied no regard to how nasty it could be at first smoke/light. Thanks
 
make sure that you can not see any smoke coming out the stack , will be see through .
 
I never liked Lump in my UDS. Had to Run Hot like 350-400 or it had unstable temps. With Briquettes I got Steady temps around 275* and could add more wood chunks.

Many guys do run Lump in their UDS. But at 200* it isn’t burning clean as your Food is Bitter Smoke taste.........
 
For turkey, I would recommend running closer to 300-325 and then tent in foil as pieces of the bird get to the color that you like. Also, for poultry, I don't even add wood because it takes on way too much smoke.

Final thought... You get double-whammied on a drum with smoke. Wood and fat drippings. I will add a small roasting pan with a bottle of water or so to catch. There are people that say the fat dripping onto the fire add great flavor. And, it does. But, you can easily over smoke a bird that way, too.

Since you are having a smoke issue, I would try running hotter (less smoke and less time) and putting in a water pan on your lowest rack.
 
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