Harry Soo can't be right....


 

Andre A

TVWBB Member
First off, who am I to argue against Harry Soo. He has won so much and most I ever go was good job Dad. Having said this, I have been looking at a few of YT videos and I can't really wrap my head around on how he incorporates wood chunks into his cook. My 2 biggest questions deal with how many chunks he uses along with the placement of said chuncks.

So in his videos, he uses about 8 chunks of wood and places them on the grate and then places the unlit coals on top of the chunks. His argument is that he doesn't want the coals to smolder, I can dig that. But my first question is the amount!

I was always told that the you want more or less a "Kiss" of smoke on your food anything more than that and you risk having your food to smokey. This, for the most part, can be done using about 2 to 3 chunks of wood. Secondly, if you are going to wrap, about 5 hours into your cook, then 8 chunks not only seems to be overkill for a smoke taste, but also seems to be a waste of wood chunks. Seems to be if you are going to wrap you don't need 8, you cook will never use that many chunks and if you decided not to wrap then 8 chuncks would simply overpower the meat.

Secondly as far as the placement is concern, he puts them at the bottom which seems to me to be to far down. Again if you are going to wrap, you want that would to start smoking before you wrap. Seems to me if the chunks are so far at the bottom, yes you would get some smoke, but not alot.

At the end to the Harry is winning and he gets tremendous smoke rings on his cooks, its just that his method seems counterintuitive. So I guess this is a more science topic but how does this work. Toughts?
 
I think the reasoning for putting them under the coals is so that they do smolder longer instead of bursting into flames. As far as the amount, for me that depends on the cook. For a brisket or butt I'll go with 8. For ribs I might just put in 3 or 4. It also for me depends on the quality of my smoke wood. I'll use less if I've got some quality wood chunks from Fruitawood vs. if I bought a bag of chunks from home depot. You also might look at what type of cook he's doing. Is it low and slow or hot and fast? I've seen him do both. There were some vids he did with T-Roy and Baby Back Maniac where he did competition hot and fast briskets. When he did another video comparing Wagyu and Choice angus, he cooked at 250. At the end of the day it's all personal. You cook what and how you want to cook. With barbecue there are just so many ways to make a great product.

Check out that video he did on smoke rings. He confirmed something I suspected for a long time, that celery seed powder contributes to the smoke ring. He also does some spritzing that contributes a lot to an excellent ring.
 
Enrico suggested that wood tip to me a while back, and I have gotten excellent results since then. I had no idea Harry used the same technique, but it does make a difference if one is having problems with creosote. As for using eight pieces, I use about five, or six, at most.
 
I'm not a BBQ competitor, so I'm not picky about how/where I place the smoke wood and I don't care a lot about smoke ring. I don't use much wood, either. Certainly not 8 large chunks.

 
I've wondered if the comp fellas even care about smoke flavor, because they put so many flavor layers on the meat with injections, rubs , mops, spritzing , and adding flavors when they wrap.

I guess that's why so many use pellet poopers, they want a smoker closer to an oven for consistency and ease
 
I usually nestle the chunks into but not under the charcoal, sometimes just on top, sometimes some under, if I use dropped sticks from my hickory tree I just toss on top as needed, Frankly, never noticed any difference. As for amount, about 5 or 6 a little smaller then a fist, or the equivalent of sticks. Again, not a big difference either way. BUT...I don't compete, nor ever want to, YMMV, :)
 
I believe i detect a difference in taste between cold fire burning wood smoke, and hot coals smoldering wood smoke. Just like with charcoal,the cool white smoke is more acrid and campfire smelling. I add the wood under and on edges, and dont put meat on until things have lined out a bit. Maybe 30 min at temp. The smoke taste is cleaner and sweeter and subtle. Like in middle of cook.

I made mistake of adding cold wood on top of burning coals once on a turkey....overpowering acrid campfire taste and smell on outside of bird. Too much white smoke on food. Blech. I avoid this now.
 
Last edited:
Lynn and Martin...

It's all about balance. No single 'ingredient' overpowering the rest. Smoke is one of those ingredients !
 
I believe i detect a difference in taste between cold fire burning wood smoke, and hot coals smoldering wood smoke. Just like with charcoal,the cool white smoke is more acrid and campfire smelling. I add the wood under and on edges, and dont put meat on until things have lined out a bit. Maybe 30 min at temp. The smoke taste is cleaner and sweeter and subtle. Like in middle of cook.

I made mistake of adding cold wood on top of burning coals once on a turkey....overpowering acrid campfire taste and smell on outside of bird. Too much white smoke on food. Blech. I avoid this now.

I think you hit the nail on the head here, Martin.
 
This is where I become confused about the type of smoke from a WSM. It seems to me that Harry Soo gets smoldering smoke as the wood ignites, but maybe not. Maybe its heated enough that it combusts when next to burning charcoal. But this makes me rethink my WSM cooks and where I place the wood chunks.

In Chris's " Cooking Topics " the BRITU cook, it calls for allowing the wood to become totally engulfed in flames before assembing the WSM, and then even waiting an hour to put the meat on

The recipe calls for 10-15 pounds of charcoal and the smoke wood to be lit using a chimney starter about an hour before cooking. All fuel is supposed to be covered with white/gray ash before cooking begins.

I deviate from the process somewhat on this point, but achieve the same end result. I fire the cooker using the Standard Method, lighting a Weber chimney starter full of Kingsford Charcoal Briquets, dumping them into the charcoal chamber when hot, then adding another full chimney of unlit briquettes and the smoke wood chunks over the lit coals (Photo 5).

Note that a Weber chimney filled to the top holds about 5 lb 5 oz of Kingsford charcoal, so two Weber chimneys of Kingsford is sufficient for this recipe.

When the smoke wood is engulfed in flames, but not fully consumed (Photo 6), assemble the cooker.
Put the water pan in place and fill it with cool tap water. Close all three bottom vents, but set the top vent fully open and leave it that way during the entire cooking process.

Allow the WSM to sit for about an hour before adding the ribs to the cooker. During this time, the cooker temperature will drop, and much of the smoke wood will be consumed, leaving just the right amount of smoke called for in the recipe.

I warm splits when running my stick burner, just like in this video from Yoder , I build my fire to one side and keep a split on the other side

 
I have seen Harry say several times "This is way I do it. If you way better do it you way":D
Not trying to get offensive,I think it's funny.. But I think he just throws ideas out there to try,and to make us think. As was said,yes 8 chunks of wood might be to much for a rib cook. But a hot and fast brisket might be about right.
I tried V8 Peach Mango on a batch of ribs yesterday because Harry mentioned it on his Championship ribs. It doesn't work for me. But I also didn't use all the ingredients he was using either.
I started putting my wood next to the grate because of a thread on here a few weeks ago. My results so far have been that I think the smoke flavor seems stronger. But when I clean out the ashes,for the most part the wood hasn't turned to ash. I'll probably keep on doing it this way from now on.
Harry also says always have fun. And i think it's cool he shares ideas of different things to try. My next batch of ribs I think I am gonna use plane old V8 juice instead of Peach mango. But then again,I might just use a little less peach mango.
What i'm trying to say is it isn't an exact Art. But it is an Art. It says that at all Gates and sons BBQ joints in KC.
"BBQ is an art. Be an artist or be gone"
 
Speak of the devil.

I smoked a Kentucky Legend ham today on the 18" WSM, and I placed one chunk of apple on the grate and covered it with premium charcoal briquettes. After the initial smoke died down, I had the idea of adding a tin foil pack of peach wood chips with a pencil-size hole in the top of the pouch for extra smoke flavor just before adding the meat. I've used pouches on the Genesis gas grill with great results, but today, the wood in the pouch left a slightly acrid taste to the meat.

Did the pouch get too hot? I don't know.

When using the WSM, I've always had my best results by placing my wood chunks directly on the grate first. I see Steve Raichlen, of Project Smoke, place wood chunks directly on the lit coals and start cooking almost immediately with great results. It never has worked that way for me, unfortunately.
 
To further complicate, do not pellet poopers and gravity feed smokers, continually add wood to lit coals ?

The complaint with pellet poopers has been they don't produce enough smoke, others counter that its clean smoke because its very clean combustion.
 
To further complicate, do not pellet poopers and gravity feed smokers, continually add wood to lit coals ?

The complaint with pellet poopers has been they don't produce enough smoke, others counter that its clean smoke because its very clean combustion.

My understanding is that they run very clean. You get a lot of convection because they use fans to blow the air through the cook chamber and they have a very small fire. Because of this, at higher temps they have almost complete combustion and so the smoke is TOO clean. To counter this, people will also run a small pellet burning tube like an A-maze-N to add some smoke flavor at high temps.

Taste's change over time. Right now it's towards a very clean smoke taste on very well drafting stick burners, at least in the Texas restaurant barbecue world. I'm willing to bet that some smokers that don't draft was well were designed that way intentionally because people complained of lack of smoke flavor.

Charcoal is a great filter. Maybe what's at play is the smoke from the chunks on the bottom is somehow cleaned by the charcoal on top of it? Just a thought.
 
When using the WSM, I've always had my best results by placing my wood chunks directly on the grate first. I see Steve Raichlen, of Project Smoke, place wood chunks directly on the lit coals and start cooking almost immediately with great results. It never has worked that way for me, unfortunately.

I've ONLY put them on top once the WSM gets up to temp so--> Proper temps then wood on top then immediately put on the meat. Always get a great ring .
 
Took a Brisket class with Dizzy Pig BBq in Manassas, Va. Now to be fair he cooks with a Kamado, however his rule of thumb would be to smell your smoke first before you add your meat. I know we all have been in situation where we got our head to close to our smoker and then our eyes started watering and our noise hairs fell off. Well this he would argue is bad smoke. The same smoke that waters your eyes, is the same smoke that is getting into the food. This is what he tries to avoid. I've gotten that clean blue smoke before, but it always seems to come bout 2 hours after I have added my meat. The question is how can you achieve this clean blue smoke quicker in the WSM.

I have always started with a little bit of lit coals and then bring it UP to temp before putting on food. Perhaps for my next cook I will start with a whole chimney of lit coals (By the way the coals i use are Redwood Lump Charcoal) and then get my WSM DOWN to temp. The thing is, when I am grilling, I full my chimney with coals and light it. In the beginning of the lighting process, I am getting nothing but white smoke, but after about 5 minutes, that is when I start getting the blue smoke from the chimney. I can only conclude that transistioning from white smoke to blue smoke has something to do with how hot the fire is compared to how many coals are in the container/cooker.
 
My theory on Harry Soo's method, is the chunks are being warmed as the fire spreads to reach them, so they combust quicker , without smoldering.

Now that said, I don't think a WSM has enough air flow for those chunks to burst into flames as a split does in a stick burner. But do the pellets in a pellet pooper burst into flames when they hit the fire ? IDK enough about pellet smokers.

But I do know , running my stick burner, I want that split to burst into flames quickly. I don't want it sit and smolder. And not only warming the splits avoids that, but I also have to have good air flow. In the Yoder video I posted, they recommend shutting the exhaust stack about a 1/3, I can't bring myself to do that, I've never done that on the WSM. I want air flow, and a lot of it. So I have the stack wide open and a lot of the time the door on the firebox is open a couple inches. I may go through more splits, but my smoke stays clean.
 
My theory on Harry Soo's method, is the chunks are being warmed as the fire spreads to reach them, so they combust quicker , without smoldering.

Now that said, I don't think a WSM has enough air flow for those chunks to burst into flames as a split does in a stick burner. But do the pellets in a pellet pooper burst into flames when they hit the fire ? IDK enough about pellet smokers.

But I do know , running my stick burner, I want that split to burst into flames quickly. I don't want it sit and smolder. And not only warming the splits avoids that, but I also have to have good air flow. In the Yoder video I posted, they recommend shutting the exhaust stack about a 1/3, I can't bring myself to do that, I've never done that on the WSM. I want air flow, and a lot of it. So I have the stack wide open and a lot of the time the door on the firebox is open a couple inches. I may go through more splits, but my smoke stays clean.


So how to control your temp? Having said this, I have a choice angus brisket that I am cooking experiment on. I am going to start my WSM on High say 325 and then work my way up to 275. See how long it takes the white smoke to disappear.
 
So how to control your temp? Having said this, I have a choice angus brisket that I am cooking experiment on. I am going to start my WSM on High say 325 and then work my way up to 275. See how long it takes the white smoke to disappear.

The only real way to learn is to experiment and smoke meats. Reading what others do can help, but I've reached the age that I forget most of what I read :)

I control the temp with size of the coal bed and the split.
 

 

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