Smoking suggestions for E-320


 
G

Guest

Guest
Hello (again).

I am trying to get into smoking on the E-320 this year and have just started to experiment. I have seen lots of advice and am trying to zero in on how to do this correctly. I have never smoked on anything before.

I just bought a stainless steel smoker box and have wood chips of various "flavors". I normally will soak the wood chips in water for 30 min, then shake the excess water off of them before putting them in the smoke box. But I'm just not getting satisfactory results.

I eventually want to smoke everything: chicken, pork, etc. So I understand that the situation is a bit open-ended, but here goes:

My last attempt was to turn all burners on high, let it preheat to about 500 or so, place the smoke box on the grill over the front burner for about 10 minutes, then turn off the rear two burners and turn the front one down til temp held at around 300. (Meat was placed on elevated "bun" rack.) I left this setting for about 90 minutes. It seems like I did not get a lot of smoke, and my chips were half-charred.

I have read to put the smoker box directly on the flavorizer bars, but then how would I align the smoker box? If I put it side to side, do I put it in slightly diagonal so that it doesn't fall? If I put it in from front to back, I would expect that I need to leave the rear burner on? Then wouldn't that mean that the meat is directly over a lit burner?

Finally, is there a suggested "low-end" temp. I would obviously like to cook as low and slow as possible while still being able to use the smoke box effectively.

Your suggestions are very much appreciated.
 
John
The E 320 was not specifically designed for smoking. Having said that smoking can be achieved. One method is to use chunks of wood about 1/2 the size of a fist - soak in HOT WATER for at least an hour and place 2 chunks between the Flavorizer bars directly over the interconnect tube (the thin tube between the burners on the LH side). You may find that a lot of smoke may escape from the LH side of the lid - if this occurs push/move/reposition the lid to close the gap as much as possible. This way you can have one burner only on and still smoke. I only use one chunk as I am not a great fan of food that is to heavily smoked, I put on chunk next to the Flavorizer bar covering the burner which is on. If you are going to use a smoker box see if you can fit it under the grill and over the interconnect tube and over the burner which you will be using.

A special note - when soaking wood in water before smoking try soaking in HOT WATER the wood absorbs the water much quicker and the water penetrates deeper giving you a better smoke.

Regards
 
On a related note.

I'm looking at smokers for my E-310 and I notice that Weber makes a Smoker Kit for it. But, when I look at the design, it looks like it violates several principles of what you are looking to do with a smoker box. IE, it's open vs closed with holes, on the side vs over a burner, etc.

Does anyone have experiences, positive or negative with going with the Weber Smoker kit (I think it used to be called the Steam N Chips or something like that.)

Blake
 

 

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