"Good" Smoke vs. "Bad" Smoke


 
J

James Harvey

TVWBB Pro
Hi All,

In one of my earliest posts someone commented on smoke quality noting that thick, white smoke was "bad smoke" but thin bluish smoke was "good smoke".

In all 3 of my WSM cooks I've used the Minion method and Sugar Maple chunks from Smokinlicious. All 3 started with thicker, white smoke and tapered to thinner bluish smoke as time wore on.

Should I be worried about this or is the smoke just smoke? I don't really think I need to burn a layer off before the wood is good to smoke.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

James
 
James, as Tim says, "No worries"
Life Is Good!
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I think the important mistake to avoid is that some people keep pilling on more smoke wood because they think the smoker has to have white smoke coming out of it to smoke the meat which is completely untrue. You are going to have some white smoke in the beginning of a session and it will not hurt the meat at all. Once it turns clear or "blue" don't think you need more smoke wood, it's still adding that smoke flavor to the meat even though you can't see it. As a rule I generally only use 2-3 fist sized chunks of smokewood when I cook on the WSM even for a long session.
 
personally, I allow the fire to establish itself before I put my meat on. You'll get white smoke when starting charcoal, and that's what I try to avoid. I don't really desire tasting charcoal smoke, I want to taste wood smoke. I'm meticulous with my cooks and there's a off taste that I'm trying to avoid. If I can't do it by cleaning up my technique, I going to switch from what I currently use, humphrey's briquettes.

keep in mind that I've been using the wsm extensively for 4 years and I also compete. Smoke flavor doesn't particularly go over well with the judges, so I'm trying to do the best I can with the wsm.

I big proponent of the "don't worry, be happy" school of wsm cooking, so its not all doom and gloom. I just wanted to give you my perspective.
 
A little tip I read from Kevin Kruger was to use smaller pcs of smoke wood. For the double filets from Smokinlicious I like to split them into 1/2 or 1/4 of the original size.
Seems to me you get out of the white, and into the blue a lot faster and with a cleaner burn IMO..

Tim
 
You're in good shape James. That's normal to have some white smoke at the onset, like others have mentioned. Try to let the WSM run a bit and settle in before throwing the food on and you will avoid a good bit of the denser smoke that's normal at start up. When starting with all lit, I make sure the lump is fully incorporated/red top to bottom of the chimney before dumping on.
 
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