Minion method, wood only


 
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Dan M.

TVWBB Member
Does the Minion method apply to wood? From what I've read, the majority of people cannot taste the difference between Minion and standard, me included. If charcoal (Kingsford for example) is primarily wood, charcoal, sawdust, binder, etc., than can't you also use the Minion method with wood?

When I load my wood stove in winter I'm basically doing the same thing by stacking the logs towards the back and away from the draft and letting the logs slowly burn through, keeping it lit and the house warm through the night. Can't I apply the same principle with an offset smoker? I can't imagine that the wood would give off a bad or different flavor to the meat since it works with charcoal? Is the amount of smoke greater with wood than charcoal?

Am I missing something?
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The Minion method has nothing to do with taste. It is totally about controlling heat. You fill the pan with charcoal and put 20 lit on top. You leave the vents open til you get within 20 degrees of your target cook temp. Then you start closing bottom vents to get your final cook temp.

When using the standard method the temp starts of real high. Higher than most want to cook at. Closing the vents to bring down the temp takes quite some time. More than most BBQ'ers want their meat at for a long period of time. That is the main reason people preffer the minion method.

As for a stick burner I haven't a clue. I have never used one. Maybe others with experience will chime in.
 
The Minion method has nothing to do with taste
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I agree, but there are some who claim they can taste the difference when using unburned charcoal for the Minion method. I can't, I'm trying to determine if the same technique can be used for wood. I know that wood burns hotter than coal, especially dense almond or oak. I was wondering if anyone has tried it with wood only, rather than burning the wood all the way down to coals before putting the meat on, or adding wood during the cook rather than just adding wood coals.
 
I haven't ever really used an all wood burn myself but I hae cooked with people who do use stick burners. Most of them will only use the Charcoal just to develop the inital coal bed and from there on, use strickly wood. Like you mentioned in the post you do it with your wood stove and with an offset coker, you can basically do the same thing. You'd still need to tend the fire since the wood would burn with differnt characteristics simply becuase of a lack of uniformity. Sort of like using the minion methond with Lump Charcoal. I have an offset that I use alot but I still pretty much use charcoal and a basket with dividers to keep the coals going. If doing a wood burn in an offset, in theory it should work. You might want to check out some of the smoker manufacturer webites like Lang or SpiceWine and ask them.
 
I don't think that would work very well. Choking down the oxygen on a charcoal fire with a few wood chunks in it is fine.
Choking down a wood fire is not good, it produces a lot of creasote and billowing smoke and will make your meat nasty. Running a stick burner is a PITA. You really need a small, clean burning fire to get good results, and unfortunately to maintain that requires a lot of attention.

The only other way is to preburn and shovel coals, but that requires a lot of attention too.
 
I put extra logs or splits in the firebox of the stickburner off to the side of the fire to preheat the wood, but in a 24x24 firebox I can't feature anything like a MM working in nearly the same manner as MM in a WSM. Yes, the stacked wood will gradually catch, but then you just wind up with a big fire that you have to try to choke (speaking from experience here...
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). Heretic I may be, but there is much more of an art to maintaining a desirable wood fire in a stickburner than to maintaining a MM charcoal fire in a WSM.

There may be a set-it-and-forget offset out there somewhere, but short of going to a pellet-munching FEC, I don't think you're going to get a good clean consistent wood fire suitable for cooking without frequent attention to the fire. Just my own humble opinion based on my experience - your mileage may vary.

Keri C, still smokin' on Tulsa Time
 
You can use a modified MM in a SFB with charcoal but I don’t think it would work with just wood in order to get the temp low enough, you would choke the fire as one of the above post stated. I have a smaller SFB and when the weather is warm I heat primarily with lump and use wood for flavor. In colder weather it’s easier to use wood as both the heat source and for flavor. Another reason the MM wouldn’t work well is most SFB don’t seal as well as the WSM and the area that needs to be heated is bigger than the WSM. Just my .02
 
Choking down the oxygen on a charcoal fire with a few wood chunks in it is fine.
Choking down a wood fire is not good, it produces a lot of creasote and billowing smoke and will make your meat nasty
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I agree, if you're choking it down too much. That's precisely how a wood stove works. You slide the damper down to choke the fire. Not to the point where it smolders, goes out, etc., but just to slow the burn and keep temps down. With my wood stove full with about 4 logs I can keep the temp around 400-500 easily. If I walk outside and take a look at my chimney there is absolutely no smoke whatsoever, not even white or blue smoke. I'll try it out this weekend. I'll do a couple of pork butts on my new Chargriller, I hope to season it today too. I'll let you know how it goes. I currently use almond, which is one of the denser woods around, and it has just about the highest btu output.
 
I'm confused. If wood burns hotter than charcoal, then why buy charcoal? It takes a tremendous amount of heat to convert water from a liquid state to a gaseous state as one would have to do with wood. Am I missing something about what Dan is saying here or is this not correct?
 
If wood burns hotter than charcoal, then why buy charcoal
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I would think that dense wood is the better choice as far as btu output, but charcoal is preferred by alot of people for it's uniformity.

I seasoned my offset smoker today. Used a little bit of lit charcoal to get it going, then used a couple of almond logs to keep the temps 200-300 for a few hours. Didn't see/smell anything that would be of concern for smoking meat. I'll try it Saturday.
 
Originally posted by Mike Parrish:
I'm confused. If wood burns hotter than charcoal, then why buy charcoal? It takes a tremendous amount of heat to convert water from a liquid state to a gaseous state as one would have to do with wood. Am I missing something about what Dan is saying here or is this not correct?
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Wood does burn hotter than charcoal but if you are using a smaller SFB then you do not want the extra heat…..It only takes about a chimney of charcoal to keep my pit at BBQ temps. If I add too much wood then in order for the wood to burn clean I have a higher than desired temp in my smoke chamber. There are people who start there fire with burnt down logs or have a separate burn pit. IMO when done like this you are just making charcoal…
 
I did beef ribs today on my offset. They came out great. They are quite a bit different than pork ribs. If you compare the two they are a bit greasier, and have a whole lot more meat. I didn't have any problems using primarily wood. I used charcoal to light the wood, then used almond only. Smoked for about 2-3 hours than wrapped and finished in the oven.
 
Mike--You are missing nothing and you are correct: Charcoal burns hotter than wood for precisely the reasons you state. Charcoal is, essentially, distilled wood. The impurities in wood (water, oils, resins) cause incomplete combustion and hence a lower temp. Charcoal produces more BTUs per pound than wood--as much as 50% more (or more still), depending on type and dryness of the wood.
 
Originally posted by K Kruger:
Mike--You are missing nothing and you are correct: Charcoal burns hotter than wood for precisely the reasons you state. Charcoal is, essentially, distilled wood. The impurities in wood (water, oils, resins) cause incomplete combustion and hence a lower temp. Charcoal produces more BTUs per pound than wood--as much as 50% more (or more still), depending on type and dryness of the wood.
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Kevin, are we talking lump charcoal here? Pure mesquite or other types of wood do burn hotter than kingsford charcoal.
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Yes, lump.

If you are measuring BTUs/lb between the two then no, they don't. 'Pure' mesquite and other types of wood converted to lump do.

As Dave notes "[t]here are people who start there fire with burnt down logs or have a separate burn pit. IMO when done like this you are just making charcoal..."--well yes, frankly, they are and that's the point. They are burning off the water, oils and other impurities so that their heat will be 'cleaner' and hotter. The potential for high heat increases after the junk is removed, not before. The heat is much easier to manage at that point as well.
 
Why not indeed.

Many do start with charcoal. Many that use wood only burn down partially so as to get rid of the less desireable moisture, insects, molds, etc., and some volatiles but to keep enough impurities there to cause smoke and hence add flavor to the meat. Those who don't pre-burn get their wood fire going well enough to provide heat and flavor and trust that the fire (and draft) will take care of the proportionally less undesireables brought on by the addition of wood at points later in the cook.

Cost of lump v. cost of wood in a given geographical area often is the determining factor or at least adds weight to the choice for one over the other. Type (and construction) of the cooker might cause one to favor one over the other as well, or might be a deciding factor in whether to pre-burn or not.
 
The key is to have a small hot fire which will burn the wood clean (which is a nice light blue smoke) I fire my SFB with charcoal as a heat source and use wood for flavor. There are people who swear that you need to burn the logs down first, I tried this method and didnt' care for it. Just my .02. I usually cook on the SFB but have been playing around with my WSM when I don't have the time to Babysit the SFB. I have found that the WSM is more forgiving with heavier smoke that is not the blue in color than the SFB. IMHO I think it has something to do with using water in the pan...I haven't tried sand yet.
 
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