How do YOU manage your smoke for HH kettle cooks?


 
D

Dave Russell

TVWBB Honor Circle
I've smoked butterflyed and beercan chickens hot-n-fast on my OTG before, but maybe not as fast as the leg quarters I did yesterday, in which a 10lb bag was DONE and CRISPY in only about an hour.
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Thing is...I waited a good while for the smoke to lighten up before putting the chicken legs on, but I noticed the time. Maybe my three quarters of a fist sized pecan chunk was just too big? Gave up on the smoke and removed the chunk before ruining the chicken, but what do ya'll do when you've got the charcoal really stoked?

Putting small chunks in foil and poking holes would probably be a more consistant way to go, but can there be foil fume issues with REALLY stoked coals? My Slide-Aside lid holder provides extry ventilation on the back side of the kettle.
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Lotta help you guys are. Would multiple choice make it easier? Got some suggestions off another site.

A. Wrap small chunks up in foil and poke holes in it. Believe I've heard that called the "smoke bomb method".
B. Bury the wood chunks underneath the lit.
C. Just use smaller wood chunks.
D. Put wood on the grate, not on the coals.

What do ya'll think?
 
A B and C. D will do nothing. When using the OTS and I want little smoke, I just add little wood. 10lb's in an hour? You must have had a scorcher. I ran the OTS for about 2 1/2 hours at 300 avg and burned less than 1/2 chimmney yesterday. I wanted a little smoke so I sprinkled some chips between the unlit and lit. Probally had smoke for 20 min. I wasn't looked to smoke, just add a touch for an indirect cook.
 
Hey Dave,

I would have replied sooner but I don't normally get on the 'puter on the weekends. Too many other things going on.

I've gotten hooked on indirect cooking in the kettle. I bought those Weber charcoal baskets that go on either side of the bowl. Then I'll put a strip of aluminum foil in-between the baskets. Mainly to cut down on the mess, but also to force the air flow to go through the baskets.

I like to put 4 or 5 golf ball size pieces of whatever wood I want to smoke with in the baskets first before I put the lit coals in. It will flame a little bit until I get the lid on. About 10-15 seconds after I put the lid on, the open flame will go out and start smoking.

Russ
 
On the kettle, I use the char-basket on the side, and keep the hinged grate flip up, and toss a handful of wood chip on every now and then. Sometimes I'll bury a smallish slice of wood in the charcoal.
 
Originally posted by Jeff R:
10lb's in an hour? You must have had a scorcher.
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Jeff,
Vent temps averaged well over 400* and I did rearrange a few of the legs a couple of times based on browning. The two rib/potato racks I used are shorter and have spaces between the slots to keep slabs or chicken legs from touching, unlike most rib racks. I bent the corner potato prongs in so I could push the two racks almost to the edge of the grill.

My typical indirect chicken set-up is to pour about one chimney of charcoal onto the back side of my kettle where my Slide-aside lid holder attaches. (This time, all of the briqs were fresh Kbb.) The charcoal piles up almost as high as the grate and is held in place by a couple of those old Weber charcoal rails you rarely see anymore. I had to overlap them, but it works. I lit the top with my torch before putting the wood chunk and lid on.
 
Guys, thanks so much for the replies. I'll be sure to go smaller with the wood chunks from now on. I'll also try the smoke bomb method for lunch since I've got some jerk chicken legs marinating. Working at home has it's perks.
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Originally posted by Dave Russell:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Jeff R:
10lb's in an hour? You must have had a scorcher.
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Jeff,
Vent temps averaged well over 400* and I did rearrange a few of the legs a couple of times </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Where you wanting temps that high. I thought you were implying you burned up to much coal to fast.
 
I will chop up some of my chunks when indirect cooking in the kettle. It don't take too much wood since the kettle does such a good job of circulating the heat and smoke around the food.
 
Jeff,

It was the smoke issue I had queastions about, not a charcoal issue.

Yes, I was shooting for temps in the 350-400* range because that's how you get truly good chicken skin (unless you go to a lot of trouble to get tender skin before smoking low-n-slow.) Cooking at true high heat on the kettle indirectly is better than any of my attempts cooking directly over the coals, and certainly better than cooking on the wsm...although turbo cooking directly, high over the coals is certainly a valid option as well.
 
As I mentioned on my jerk chicken thread, the foil smoke bombs worked great today. However, the foil disintegrated on the coals.

Any reason I can't just save a couple of empty tuna cans to fill with very small chunks? If that's not enough volume, there's the larger sized can as well.
 
C.

I use the same size wood in my kettle as I do the WSM. I never use fist-sized for anything. One fist-sized = 5-6 of my usual pieces.

Always wood on top.

On occasion I use pellets (sometimes even chips if that's all that's available) and in that case: foil packs, also on top.

If your temps are low you could use a can I suppose. If high you'll want to restrict air.
 
Dave, I use a handful of wood chips scattered & buried in the briquettes, and maybe a golf ball sized chunk cut down from a larger piece when smoking on the kettle. Since chicken is easily over smoked, I don't use very much smoking wood at all.

400° is a very hot fire in a kettle. Except for direct searing of steaks, I don't cook anything that high on mine.
 
Dave,

75% of the wood that I use is store-bought, and I buy chips for the kettle and chunks for the WSM. Dry chunks and briefly soaked chips. Typically I'm not using a lot of coals if I'm smoking on the kettle, so it's easier to control the burn of the chips. Also, you can really get a lot of smoke flavor in a short period of time with the chips which works well for a HH cook. Oh, and to answer your first question: wood goes on the coals.
 
Dave,

I find pecan a bit too strong for my tastes, and typically stick with either hickory or (preferably) apple for chicken. Apple is plenty mild, with lots of room for "oversmoking" before any adverse effect imparts into the food.

Like many others here I too prefer smaller (3" x 2") chunks of wood (or lots of chips), instead of larger ones.
 
Originally posted by Dave Russell:
As I mentioned on my jerk chicken thread, the foil smoke bombs worked great today. However, the foil disintegrated on the coals.

Any reason I can't just save a couple of empty tuna cans to fill with very small chunks? If that's not enough volume, there's the larger sized can as well.
Click to expand...

I've never had good luck using the foil packs me-self. Single or double wrapped in HD foil (Reynolds) and most of the pack did disintegrate either on the WSM or the OTG.
Got away from that and bought a SS smoker box from Lowes. That was fine for chips or small chunks but I do use pellets ever so often, and for those I use an old metal spice tin with a screw on cap. I torched it till cherry red to burn off any off-gasses and punched a small hole in the lid.
You should be able to do the same with the tuna can, wrapped at the top with foil and a hole.
Or save the top and just drill a hole.

Tim
 
Small chunk or two depending on size on the lit. If I use chips (my son bought me a bunch a few years ago), I soak for 30 or so minutes and scatter on the lit. I don't freak out over a lot of smoke coming out of the sides of the grill or the top vent. It's going out. JMO
 
Thanks for all the suggestions, guys. I'll probably just use some cans as Timothy mentioned next time I'm cooking so hot, but it has certainly been a while since I smoked anything on the kettle, no matter the temp. Don't know what I was thinking, using such a large chunk of wood.
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