Do wood chunks catch fire in the WSM

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After reading several topics on this site I decided to try smoking on a smoker similar to the ECB - no vent/heat control. Finished product came out ok (butts, ribs) but the wood chunks didn't last long - they caught fire fairly quickly even though they were soaked. Do the vents on the WSM allow the use of wood chunks without the wood catching on fire?
 
Absolutely! I'm not a veteran but, with seven smokings under my belt I have yet to see the wood chunks catch fire when I'm smoking. This holds true from a fairly short cooking of a chickent (about 3 hours) to a 12 hour smoke of a pork butt.

While cooking, my vents are anywhere from 0% to 50% open depending on the amount of meat and charcoal I have in the smoker. This has let in enough air to fuel the charcoal but not enough for the wood to catch fire.

The only time I have seen the wood catch fire is when I was finished a smoking and disassembled the smoker. There was still some wood left on the charcoal and it probably caught fire because of all the available oxygen.

Also want to point out that I do not soak my wood. Using very dry maple with a great deal of success. Hope this helps you out.
 
I agree completely with John. Also, I have never used wet wood chunks; always dry. This weekend I was having some low temps on the WSM, so I removed the access door to get more air in to the charcoal. A few of the chunks caught fire after the door had been open for a few minutes, but the fire went out shortly after I shut the door.
 
I use dry chunks and they do not catch fire in the WSM. Even with the vents 100% open when doing a chicken they do not catch fire. just did a 4 hr cook last fri night and still had some wood chunks left. /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
 
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