Active smoke production

[Guest]

Fresh chunks of wood seem to produce lots of smoke for the first 2 or 3 hours, then I don't see any smoke. The chunks are about half consumed, but still present, so I don't add any more but I wonder if they are still contributing to smoke flavoring? I still only get smoke the first few hours even when I bury a few chunks with the minion method. I've been following Chris's general guidance of 4 to 6 chunks at the beginning and not adding any more. But I wonder if I should add more on a longer cook to get more smoke to the meat?

 

[Paul G.]

I suspect we're still getting some some production out of the chunks, well into the cook even though we aren't seeing the stream of smoke as early on. For me that's plenty. I suppose if a person cooked this way and still didn't feel there was enough smoke flavor then certainly a chunk or two could be added. Smoke will continue to be "deposited" (see Doug, I learned) as long as it is produced, so you would get more smoke flavor. As they say, "be careful what you wish for", it might be too much.

Paul

 

[Russ Hazzon]

Keep in mind there are two kinds of smoke - good smoke and bad smoke. When you first throw on a chunk of wood it billows white smoke out of the top vent. This is bad smoke. It is rather bitter, contains a lot of moisture, and may deposit creosote on your meat contributing to a bitter taste.

As the wood burns down so does the smoke. It will eventually turn into a thin blue whisp of smoke coming from the top vent, almost colorless in fact. This is the good smoke. It adds subtle smokey flavor to the meat and is not at all bitter.

So how do you add more wood to a cook without getting bad smoke? Preburn some of the chunks in your chimney is a possibility. I find that using larger chunks of wood produces a longer burn time for the good smoke. In fact I'd rather use one or two large pieces of wood than five or six small chunks.

Best thing you can do is experiment during a few cooks. Try and keep everything constant except the size of the wood and see how the resulting cooks turn out. Ain't nothing better than practice (and I've got the waisteline to prove it!).