"All Wood" in CG Offset

[Papa Payne]

I have recently switched to "all wood" in my el-cheapo CG offset and the results are a big hit. The last butts were some of the best ever coming off of the CG and then this past weekend, smoked 4 whole chickens that got great reviews from family and Friends.

My question is: is anyone else here doing the same thing? Me personally am not satisfied with the results and think there is room for improvement.

Here is a quick rundown of the last smoke:

First cleaned, dried and spat-cock four whole chickens. Seasoned with salt and pepper.


Loaded up the firebox (Leaving room for a lit chimney of charcoal to get things started):


Warming/Slightly overheating wood to add to the firebox:


The birds just before pulling them off of the smoker:


I ran the smoker wide azz open as I was pressed for time. The temps varied from 325 to 375 for 4.5 hours.

Other questions are:

• Is there too much wood packed in the firebox?
• How do you add wood to the firebox without getting the dreaded white smoke?
• And do you wait until you have nothing but blue smoke to load the smoker?

Thanks

Papa

 

[Alan in Ga]

I do all wood(pecan mostly) on my NB offset and a mixture on my two UDS. I love the smokey flavor the offset gives.

 

[peppasawce]

Me too Alan the smokey flavor is were it's at for me!!!!I own a Offset and a UDS both are good with me....That chiken looks tastey Papa Payne

 

[DanPop]

I use all wood sometimes, but not that much at once. But I'm trying to keep my temps at 225 so that's what's good for me. Yes, when I'm starting the fire I wait for the heavy white smoke to go away. I see you're keeping the extra wood on the fb, that's what I do, too. That seems to keep them warm enough for me so that when I throw another on the fire, it starts burning right away which prevents the white smoke. Your chicken looked great!

 

[tjus77]

• Is there too much wood packed in the firebox? Yes, I was surprised you didn't have higher temps than that. I used smaller wood chunks too. Try running with charcoal and wood throughout the cook. I found on my old small offset that it was better to let the charcoal control the heat and a couple of chunks of wood for smoke, worked great.
• Pecan is great to use, because it is not as hot as oak and nice sweet smoke.

Great looking chicken BTW.

 

[2007Flsct]

I also recently started to smoke with all wood on my char griller duo. It might be that the duo is smaller, but I use way less wood than you. With one log burning the temperature will go up 300.

I only did 3 all wood smokes so far, so I am still learning. I still have a hard maintaining a constant temperature.