New Backwoods Cabinet - How do I get more smoke flavor?

[The Satch]

Hi everyone, first post here, appreciate all the good information on this forum. I'm in Western Washington, I've been smoking/bbq for about 9 years now (backyard, no interest in competitive), the vast majority of that on a WSM. I've got the Cajun Bandit door, plug, and fire ring, and I've got a hook frame for vertical smoking, and I have that thing pretty well figured out. I run it dry, no water pan at all, and have had fantastic results.

The only downside with the WSM is trying to cook up here in the fall and winter, it just loses heat so quickly, I decided to get an insulated cabinet, and picked up a Backwoods G2 Chubby. Very happy with the consistent temps regardless of ambient temp, and the textures I'm getting are good, but I'm not getting much smoke flavor, definitely not enough for my taste (wife agrees on that front). I did a short plate of beef ribs Saturday, and the rub is great (just salt, pepper, garlic), the bark is good, there's a little bit of a smoke ring, but there's not really any smoke flavor. I put them on straight out of the fridge, used yellow mustard to adhere the rub, the same process I use on my WSM, and used mesquite and hickory in the fire tray, but no flavor on the meat. Any tips or suggestions on how to increase the smoke transferred to the meat?

 

[Kaptain Kadian]

Put the food on cold. Use non kiln dried wood. Put the wood under the charcoal

 

[SmokeOCD]

You could back off or skip on the mustard. I'm sure it's what you've always done, but you did switch smokers. The more stuff you have coating your meat, the less smoke absorption you're gonna get.

 

[snadamo]

I have the G3 (the "imported" version) of the G2. I can't remember where...maybe his podcast...but Malcom Reed was talking about these and the need to add more wood than usual for what would be considered a "normal" smoke profile. I tend to agree with that assessment. I've almost doubled the wood chunks I use compared to when I used my WSM. Don't quote me though, all hearsay and $0.02

You may want to search the archives here too for additional info.

 

[Jason TQ]

I had a G2 chubby and party. I added a lot more wood than other smokers. Like 6-8 chunks along with only using lump. Worked well.

 

[The Satch]

I'll try more wood and removing the mustard, I really wish the fire basket was bigger, I'm using lump, but fitting a lot more wood in will be tough

 

[Big Andy]

I had another brand of cabinet smoker with the same problem. I finally started adding chunks after my temps had settled in and adding every couple of hours as the others burned up.

 

[Big George's BBQ]

Definitely more wood. Different types of wood gives different profiles ie I believe Hickory is stronger than pecan. Check out the Naked Whiz charcoal data base to see if it helps with which brand of lump offers more smoke flavor- just an idea

 

[Jason TQ]

I sold both my backwoods like 7 years ago I think, but dug up a couple pics of the fire baskets.

These first 2 pics are of examples of what I'd put in my g2 party. Granted the height of the fire box is a little taller than the g2 chubby, but the basket size is identical. This was for cooking big meats overnight at comps. I have what looks like ~10 chunks buried in there and then I'd start the fire with a weber cube and let the guru take over.

This is how I'd load my G2 chubby Sat morning for ribs. Bunch of wood in there for even smaller meats. I lit it by stealing a few lit coals from the party.

 

[1MoreFord]

You could always do like the pellet grill folks and get one of the A-maze-n smoker products. They also work well if you ever want to cold smoke.

https://www.atbbq.com/pages/search-results?q=A-Maze-N&page=2

 

[The Satch]

Definitely more wood. Different types of wood gives different profiles ie I believe Hickory is stronger than pecan. Check out the Naked Whiz charcoal data base to see if it helps with which brand of lump offers more smoke flavor- just an idea

Yep, this I get, which is why I was so surprised that I got no smoke flavor when I normally use apple

 

[The Satch]

I sold both my backwoods like 7 years ago I think, but dug up a couple pics of the fire baskets.

These first 2 pics are of examples of what I'd put in my g2 party. Granted the height of the fire box is a little taller than the g2 chubby, but the basket size is identical. This was for cooking big meats overnight at comps. I have what looks like ~10 chunks buried in there and then I'd start the fire with a weber cube and let the guru take over.

This is how I'd load my G2 chubby Sat morning for ribs. Bunch of wood in there for even smaller meats. I lit it by stealing a few lit coals from the party.

Appreciate the photos, this helps, I'll go way higher on the wood quality and add throughout

 

[shares]

Don't worry about smoke - it will happen on it's own. I've been cooking comp on Backwoods original chubby and competitor for over 12 yrs - focus instead on less smoke, cleaner smoke, thin blue smoke. Backwoods do not produce a lot of smoke because they cook clean.

 

[snadamo]

I swear that our phones are listening in on us. This link to that podcast I mentioned showed up on my YouTube feed https://youtu.be/ik5Ji1uditE?si=Y_V0-EPgbrT8N-67