Still crazy!

I’m still playing around with this burn barrel idea with the charcoal chimney. Doing an overnight pork butt cook. I am burning mesquite embers. I wanted hickory and apple but mesquite was all they had at the store. I’m going to extend the burn with lump charcoal. This set up should give me 6 hours. I’ll repeat the set up in 6 hours with more lump and mesquite embers and that should finish the cook. I am cooking at 275 deg and holding steady with my intake at the 1/3 position and vent at the 1/2 way position. Thin blue and sweet smelling mesquite from the start. You can’t see the smoke from the picture but you can see it in person. Everything is smelling great and all things are pointing towards this being a successful pork butt cook!

I dumped some more mesquite embers in and the smoke is smelling very sweet and nutty! I dumped a little sooner than ideal since I’m getting ready for a nap. If this pork butt turns out I’ll definitely be smoking with mesquite a lot more. I decided against adding more lump. I’ll add some more embers in about 3 hours. I’m around 300 deg right now and should settle back in around 275 deg shortly.

rwalters said:

Love it! Look forward to seeing/hearing more

Poor Joe sitting there in the background... all cold and lonely

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I’m curious how this is going to turn lol. So far everything that I’ve cooked with this method has been outstanding. I’ve never had a mesquite pork butt before but it should be decent at worst since I’m burning a clean fire. Smoldering mesquite could be disastrous

Ok so I “loosely” pulled some pork and took a pic real quick. Total cook time was around 10 hours and still had plenty of coals and could have done 12 hours. I only had to refuel once. Fuel was used was roughly 75% mesquite embers and 25% lump. It held temp very steady and using embers vs lump didn’t really change anything except that it ran a bit hotter with mesquite. From my prior experience using this method with cherry and apple is that it ran cooler and the vents needed to cracked open a little more. Start up time was 25 minutes and that time included the time from when I lit the chimney to when I put the food on.

As far as smoke flavor it was as perfect as it can be. The typical “mesquite” flavor that I get sometimes I couldn’t taste and I could only taste wood smoked bbq as opposed to charcoal and wood which I don’t really care for. One thing I’ve really come to notice is that the smoke flavor is very uniform throughout. In other words every bite tastes equally smoked. Maybe the uniform combustion plays a role in that. I also want to not that how smoky or good/bad your end product is will depend on ability to know when the embers are ready. When I put my embers in I get about 15 minutes of TBS followed by transparent smoke after that.

Now to compare against other smokers. BTW this is just my opinion.

Charcoal smokers: I prefer burn barrel bbq by a mile. Big difference between lump charcoal and wood embers.

Pellet smokers: I’ve only done this a few times but I prefer the flavor of this method to my Mak even. It’s a small difference but I’m getting a much more uniform flavor here than with my Mak. Something that wasn’t controlled for however is that my Mak used hickory and I used mesquite with this method when comparing the 2 pork butt cooks.

Stickburner: The all wood smoke profile is basically the same but yet again I’m getting a consistently more uniform smoke flavor and color throughout. If I were to get a stickburner for greater capacity then you better believe I’ll be getting an actual burn barrel.

Like I said above this is just my opinion. I’ve used this method just a handful of times but this is the conclusion I’ve come up with so far.

I also want to reiterate that the level of smoke and how clean your embers are will depend on your ability to know when the wood is ready for what you are trying to achieve. However I’d much rather add embers and get consistently good TBS/ transparent smoke from the start than have to battle temp and what your smoke is looking like coming out of the stack. I’d also much rather add embers every 3-4 hours instead of a split every 45 minutes. With an offset I do realize that you would have to add more often to the inefficiency of the design.

Last thought but this goes without saying.... use stronger smoke woods for more smoke flavor and weaker smoke woods for less smoke flavor.

I wanted to add one last thing. I personally feel that as long as you use wood for both your heat and smoke I don’t think you can go wrong and I believe you will get top notch flavor. The differences between my Mak, a stickburner, and this is pretty negligible if I’m going to be honest.

rwalters said:

Nice work and what a fun experiment! Couldn’t agree more with your last sentence. The differences between my MAK and the last stick burner I had are definitely negligible. Burning sticks was a blast, but I found that I was rarely able to burn sticks simply due to having other priorities than feeding a stick every 45-60 mins (family, church, chores, fitness, friends, work, sleep, etc.). Your newly discovered method has my attention though

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I’m just glad I found a way to make charcoal smokers work to my taste! It was just an experiment though and gives me another option. For shorter cooks I’ll bounce back and forth between my Mak and this method. For longer cooks the Mak is a no brainer.

rwalters said:

What’s really cool is the extended burn times you’re seeing AND still able to get that ultra clean woodsy flavor profile

Although the feeding of fuel is often, I can’t help but think you would absolutely love the KBQ cooker. I have never used one, but it just has your name written all over it based on your preferred flavor profile.

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I’ve looked into that and I was like meh lol. The extended burn times is from the efficiency of a charcoal smoker vs a stickburner or open pit. You can really shut the vents down and not have to add fuel that often. You also won’t have to worry about bad smoke from shutting your vents down since the nasties have already been burned off. I’m a believer that the only smokers that can allow for successful addition of fresh wood without adverse effects are high airflow cookers (stickburner and pellet grills) Low airflow cookers I feel must only have preburned wood added mid cook since there isn’t enough oxygen to create flame and therefore burn off the nasties.

rwalters said:

And that is exactly why poor Joe sits in the background of your pic cold as can be... lol. I cannot believe how much I dislike kamado cooked food now that I am cooking primarily w/ pellets. Once you go clean, it’s hard to return to dirty

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Oh I know it.... like I said before, if you are cooking with a clean burning all wood fire then you’re making top notch bbq. I hate smoldering wood flavor now

JVM59 said:

Folks, I tried this technique last Friday with some chicken thighs and pecan wood after Brent posted about it on 8/13. Do yourself a favor and try it out. It works great!

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I’ve tried cherry, apple, hickory, and mesquite so far. I need to try pecan soon with this technique. I can’t find pecan chunks in the store unfortunately.

https://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=274655

This is the thread he is talking about by the way