newbie question - wood as fuel versus flavor

[Rob F]

I noticed that a lot of recipes call for 3-5 fist sized chunks of wood for flavor on top of the charcoal fuel...

That said, I know that my friends with offset smokers / stick burners / whatever use wood for both the fuel and the smoke production.

What's the difference? I would have thought that using all that wood for fuel would over-smoke the meat, but I've never noticed it being overpowering when eating their stuff.

So how do offset smokers using only wood not produce a lot more smokey meat than the WSM with only 3-5 chunks of wood for the same length of time? Will mine be too mild?

I did try to find the answer in the forums before posting, but no luck (searched for all the following terms: wood fuel smoke flavor offset).

Thanks to all.

 

[Alexander]

Welcome to the forum. I'm pretty new also. I've heard of over smoking food in the WSM if using than a few chunks. Interesting to hear what the experts say. What wood do you use? Mesquite?

 

[Bill S.]

I'm guessing you could burn your smokewood down to charcoal and then use that as fuel. I think using wood as fuel would be way too much smoke.

 

[R. Hanson ("Rondo")]

Hey,Rob....Offset smokers that cook with logs usually have so much air running through them that, many times, using charcoal is impractical. That huge amount of air movement also dilutes the smoke sufficiently ... The WSMs are smaller & are sealed tighter generally than many stick burning offsets....making them more efficient for charcoal useage and more sensitive to smoke wood quantity....Hasta La Vista

 

[Gary H. NJ]

The same question has occured to me, but I never posted. Thanks for the reply Rondo. Makes perfect sense.

 

[Mike R. (Heyworth)]

With an offset smoker, the wood is the fuel, meaning that the wood is MUCH hotter, reducing the amount of smoke significantly. The flavor is clearly there, but it is not the same kind of smoke you get from the WSM. Much more like a campfire smoke is what you get in the offset smokers. In a WSM, the fire needs to be much more concentrated since the area is far smaller, and charcoal is the fuel that gets the necessary heat to area ration, and with that, the wood used just smolders, releasing its delicious smoke, but not igniting to provide any extra heat.

 

[Vince B]

I am appreciating this thread. I recently visited my parents out of state and dad has an old offset. I every year for a week right before Christmas go down to visit. This is an old Oklahoma Joe's stick burner type smoker. I have used it a total of about a dozen times now. The first two years I visited I used charcoal with wood chunks for flavor. It always ate up fuel. Here is a picture of his rig. Mind you dad has never used this smoker. Basically when the people who owned the house moved they left it behind. I like it because it gives me something to smoke with! Here is a picture.

This last year I decided I was going to try real wood. Dad had some oak on the side of the house that he knows has been drying for a few years now. I though this would work well and be free. Well the wood was a little wet from sitting out untarped but once I got a good bed of coals going it would start a fresh log without an issue. I figured once an hour I would need to add two split log pieces to keep it going and maintaining temps.



After playing with the smoker for a while and figuring out how to maintain temps, I was like lets make a meal. I decided to make some BB's that I brought down to smoke. Well I way over smoked these things. After doing some research on another site I was told to burn logs in a pit and then transfer the coals. The smoke was way to thick IMO because of the method in which I used. I would like to try it again with wood that is totally dry using the same method but I am afraid that the results will be the same.



The next cook I went back to using lump straight and it worked well but I still went through a ton on each of my cooks. Nice smoke flavor and a much cleaner burn. If I had to guess I would go through a bag of Royal Oak every 3-4 hours. I did however figure an easy way to keep a minion type burn going. I would take the lit coals every time I would add fresh and push them to one side of the fire box. Then on the other I would shovel the fresh lump and let the lit light the unlit. This method worked well and once every hour or so I would have to add. I basically kept an eye on my maverick and when the temps started to fall it was time to add. I was able to maintain 225-275* fairly easy but I still had to keep adding fuel.



Here is a picture of the 33lbs of boneless shoulders I made these on my last cook and I will say these were awesome. Next year I want to get a small log burning fire pit and try to preburn logs for the coals . Then I will transfer them to the fire box and see if that helps. Here are the pic's. This was a 12 hours cook.

Any advise is welcome here and I do have more pictures if anyone wants to see more or has any questions. Sorry to hijack the thread!

 

[j biesinger]

Ron and Mike have good points. Let me see if I can add anything.

location of the fire is the big difference between an offset and a wsm. most of the heat generated by the firebox in an offset goes up (heat rises) and never over to the meat. So to get the cooking chamber of an offset to cooking temp the fire in the firebox needs to be much hotter than a wsm. To get a hotter fire you need a lot of air. Oxygen plus heat means good combustion. The aromatic compounds in the wood that flavor the meat don't stand a chance and are burned into co2 and h20.

the wsm on the other hand takes full advantage of the fact that heat rises and puts the fire directly under the meat. as a result we run smaller (cooler) fires and tend to choke them back by restricting the air flow. The result is that the aromatics of the wood are much more likely to survive un-combusted.

IMO, fire control is one of the most important skills to master, especially in comps where smoke flavor is usually NOT a desirable attribute. Getting good combustion with both offsets and wsm's is important to avoid "over smoking" the meat.

 

[Joe Abad]

Excellent discussion... Here is my 2 cents worth...I have a 24 x 48 stick burner and both models of WSMs and complete combustion of the fuel is a key. When the off-set is cooking properly there is only a very small amount of smoke being emmitted. Likewise with the WSMs. When a log is added to the stick burner or when a piece of wood is added to the WSM smoke increases denoting that the oxygen level has fallen. The heat from combustion cooks the food while too much smoke could be detrimental to the flavor.

joe

 

[R. Hanson ("Rondo")]

Great info guys

Great lookin butts, Vince,..one idea that can make an offset a little more user friendly .....start by building a robust charcoal fire just before you're ready to smoke...get lotza coals glowing ...and then add just one log at a time, frequently, as each prior log is partially consumed through out the cook, it takes a lot of "tending"...but that's the offset world.

 

[Joe Abad]

I'd like to add a few more pennies... When using my stick burner I make sure the fire is burning well and the pit is warmed up a bit.

joe

 

[Scooter B]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by j biesinger:
location of the fire is the big difference between an offset and a wsm. most of the heat generated by the firebox in an offset goes up (heat rises) and never over to the meat. So to get the cooking chamber of an offset to cooking temp the fire in the firebox needs to be much hotter than a wsm. To get a hotter fire you need a lot of air. Oxygen plus heat means good combustion. The aromatic compounds in the wood that flavor the meat don't stand a chance and are burned into co2 and h20.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is pretty much the answer. The fact is that offsets have a separate "burn chamber" that runs MUCH hotter then your cooking temp. The damper between the burn and cook chamber is adjusted to maintain temps.

If you have ever done a high heat cook in the WSM and tried to add wood, then you know how fast a small dry chunk is combusted and how little smoke it will produce.

Personally I have never used an offset, but everything I have seen/read indicates you build a nice hot fire and add small splits when needed... You don't want to smother the fire with large or wet pieces.
The smoke flavor will build over the cook since you are using wood as the source and each piece is still generating some of that "smoke" flavor you are desiring.