Harry Soo can't be right....


 
This comparison cook is very interesting in several different ways. Smoldering smoke vrs clean smoke. Pellet smoke vrs charcoal/chunk.

Visually, just looking at the smoke produced by the smoke tube, my thought was that it was dirty smoke and would put an off flavor on the meat.

 
GrantT said:
I had a Broil King Keg (an extremely efficient grill - too efficient actually) for years before getting my Summit S6, and the ONLY way I could get a non-acrid, nice clean smoke was to place the chunks underneath the lump.

By placing it underneath the coals, you get an "after burner" effect where un-burned organics get re-introduced into the heat of the charcoal above and gets a second burning.

Even with the Summit Kamado, I have repeated this and just find the smoke that comes from wood chunks burning underneath the smoldering charcoal produces a more pleasant smelling, less acrid smoke. i.e. thin blue smoke. That said, the Summit is also a very efficient grill as well...

...so, I think the more efficient the grill, the more important it is to apply additional techniques as necessary to improve the burn.
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Grant,
I have a Keg as well. In fact, I've had another, but it rusted out a couple years ago. I like them mostly. Another way to get clean smoke in it is to cook hot and fast, like 300F. A good hot fire seems to burn off the sooty smoke.

My take on that chicken Lynn posted a few years ago, is that the grayish tinge is the gray smoke laying on the skin. I recognize it since I've done it often enough.
 
Took Harry's class last Saturday. He had me place the chunks on the charcoal grate and then he put the charcoal on top, burying the wood chunks. Here's his explanation.
He said "you want to evaporate the wood between 451F and (I think he said) 780F (or 800F). Above the 780-800F the smoke starts converting to gases. Below that, the smoke is heavy and sooty.

He didn't go into it too deeply, but I think he's had a lot of late night discussions around the bbq circuit with collegues about it. My take, the glowing coals on the surface are very hot and can be measured with your IR thermometer, but I think, in a low/slow minion fire, they are going to be in the area of about 1000-1100F. On the surface. As the smoke rises thru the passages between the burning coals, it is heated and the smoke becomes light and even some clear gases.

If you put the wood on top of the charcoal, the ignition line in front of the wood burning produces the heavy sooty smoke, behind the line, where the wood is glowing, it produces the clear gases. Somewhere in the middle is the light blue smoke.

Harry said that at a competition, you can tell the very experienced competitors from the less experienced by what's coming out of their smoke stacks. Very experienced competitors will have nothing or very light smoke.
 
That last statement is so very true. On Saturday mornings, in our walk to the tent, we (wife and myself) avoid traversing near team areas whose pits are shadowed in a cloud of smoke or reeked of burnt oil. Thankfully, there numbers are few....
 
Harry showed me the charcoal over log technique. Sort of works a bit like a karabecue or so. Using the yhe charcoal to dry and prepare, then perfect the smoke.
Works for Harry. Good enough for
 
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Bob Bass said:
That last statement is so very true. On Saturday mornings, in our walk to the tent, we (wife and myself) avoid traversing near team areas whose pits are shadowed in a cloud of smoke or reeked of burnt oil. Thankfully, there numbers are few....
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I don't compete and don't have that inclination, but would like to go on one of his charity cooks or fire line cooks. That'd be interesting and rewarding to me.
 
I'm not about to argue with Harry, but what he does is counter intuitive to me and what I've learned running a stick burner.

If I want a clean fire, I get more air to the fire and get the splits fully in flame.

If I want to hold down the fire, I push a split down in the coal bed. It won't burn as hot and to a degree, it will smolder due to lack of air.

If I want a split to catch fire, I hollow out the coal bed under the split or prop up the split so air gets under the split.

It seems to me, that wood chunks buried in the charcoal will not get as much air as those on top. But then , there's a lot about charcoal/chunk that is a mystery to me.

Years ago, on BBQ Pitmasters, the inventor of the gravity feed smoker, Walter McDowell aka Stump , said that his smoker burned clean because the smoke was cleaned as it passed through " superheated air " . I thought, OK, whatever. But then I bought Masterbuild 560 on sale at half price at Walmart, and I was surprised at the smoke it produced. I expected a lot of white billowy smoke, but it produces thin blue.
 
I kind of do a combination on my my WSM. I bury most of my chunks but I put one by my lit charcoal to get that initial smoke for a good smoke ring and what not. I've also put half on top, and buried. I've not noticed a ton of difference but I haven't compared side by side either. I've only once oversmoked something on the WSM. But the smoke flavor is generally kind of dulled compared to a stick burner. It's subtle but noticeable.
 
I think GrantT said it best, "you get an afterburner" when the wood smoke passing thru the hot coals placed above the wood.

Since the smoke ring is the reaction of the myoglobin in the meat to nitric oxide produced from burning wood, visible smoke and smoke flavor are separable from a smoke ring itself. Nitric oxide is flavorless gas that would be produced as a byproduct of wood burning up to almost 2400F. You can make a smoke ring in meat by introducing this reaction by other methods, such as putting nitrates on a wet meat surface. Old timey smokers associated smoke rings with smoke flavor, because that's what they saw after long hours of the meat being smoked with their particular methods.

I'm currently of the opinion that smoke flavor is primarily particulates on the surface of the meat and some sulfur oxides (which do have a taste and will penetrate a bit and combine with the meat fluids). When I pull out a chunk of pork butt, smoked for many hours, careful not to contaminate the inner meat with the outer meat, cut off the inside meat and taste it, there is no detectable smoke flavor. It's not until I pull the meat and mix it in with the bark, will the smoke flavors start to blend in.

We all know people that can't stand smoked meats. I think they may have sensitive taste and the sulfur flavor is one of the repulsive tastes they get.
 
Lynn Dollar said:
This comparison cook is very interesting in several different ways. Smoldering smoke vrs clean smoke. Pellet smoke vrs charcoal/chunk.

Visually, just looking at the smoke produced by the smoke tube, my thought was that it was dirty smoke and would put an off flavor on the meat.

Click to expand...

After many years of eating heavily smoked meats from komado, UDS, and an offset, I bought a RecTec Bull pellet smoker (well, my wife gifted me one). During the first year and a half, I thought the smoke flavor was too light on the pellet grill. I was still doing some things on one of the kamados and sometimes, the offset. At some point, my preference started to lean toward lighter smoked meats. I'll admit, some things come out a bit light on smoke from the pellet grill. But I prefer that over any over smoked meat. On the ribs, I've done them both with and without a smoke tube and I do like the smoke tube results.
 
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