Placing wood chunks in the WSM

[Lynn Dollar]

I tried a new way of putting chunks in my 18 WSM. I put them under the charcoal grate.

Gravity feed smokers produce a clean smoke. The inventor, Walter " Stump " McDowell , says super heated air in the charcoal hopper cleans the smoke. Whether wood chunks are placed in the hopper or below in the ash pan, smoke from the smoldering chunks must travel through a coal bed before entering the cook chamber. It produces thin blue smoke.

Sooo, I'm thinking why not put wood chunks below the charcoal grate in a WSM. The smoldering chunks produce smoke that would have to travel though the charcoal bed.

First problem, I did not want chunks laying in the bottom of the WSM. Did not think they would get air down that low. I took a charcoal grate from my Smokey Joe and it fit nicely in the bottom. There's 3" clearance between the two grates.

Second problem, the bars on the WSM charcoal grate are narrow and it would take time for charcoal embers to become small enough to fall through to the wood chunks, as they do in a gravity feed. So I began the cook by putting 10 fully lit briquettes directly on the wood chunks. Then put the WSM grate in place and dumped the rest of an Okie Joe chimney on the grate.

I did Chris's " Hot and Fast chicken " from the Cooking Topics page, a cook I've done many times on an 18 and 22 WSM. I have strong doubts this would work with the Minion Method, as the coal bed would not get hot enough to clean the smoke. And I only smoked one bird. Two on the 18 take up the entire cooking grate and for what I was doing, I did not want to impede air flow.

My experience with that cook is I get white smoke for the first 30 minutes of the hour or so cook. Then it clears. My thinking is it clears when the wood chunks are burnt. On this cook, I got thin blue smoke the entire hour. In fact, it was so thin I was worried that the chunks did not continue to smolder. I took pics and video of the smoke but it hardly appeared in a pic.

Here's the Smokey Joe grate and then the " chunks " on the grate. I took a B&B cherry split, split it again, and then cut it in half to make chunks that were about 1" in diameter and 6" long . And I will continue this in another post ...................

 

[Lynn Dollar]

Here's the chunks after putting the 10 lit coals on , and this was the only time I got white smoke

 

[Lynn Dollar]

And after the cook. I was very curious to see if the cherry chunks burned. And they were completely consumed. I carefully deconstructed the charcoal on the WSM grate to get a good look at what happened to the chunks .

 

[Lynn Dollar]

I'm gonna do this again. First change I will make is to put more wood chunks in and I'm thinking I light a Weber Junior chimney filled with small pieces of lump, and dump those on the chunks.

I'd really like to see others try this, to see if they get the same results. Or how it compares to the smoke they see from their cooks. Maybe there's other ways to get thin blue, all I know is what I get. And for my first time to do this, I was happy with the results.

I'm also thinking of trying this with the Minion Method. Maybe instead of putting 25 lit coals on a bed of unlit charcoal, I put 12 of the coals on the wood chunks and 12 or more on the bed of unlit. That way I'm creating wood smoke and maybe getting the same heat level. IDK, this is gonna take some thought. And in the end, the MInion just may not be a hot enough coal bed to clean the smoke.

Here's the graph on cooking temps

 

[Jeff Beitinger]

i'd say the idea's got legs and makes a lot of sense.
the smoke "filtration" is why a lot of people put their chunks either within or under their charcoal vs just setting it on top.

 

[Lynn Dollar]

i'd say the idea's got legs and makes a lot of sense.
the smoke "filtration" is why a lot of people put their chunks either within or under their charcoal vs just setting it on top.

That's what Harry Soo does. And Harry cooks at 275*, which creates a hotter coal bed.

 

[Timothy F. Lewis]

I do the “Soo method” have for a long time, works really well for me.

 

[timothy]

That's what Harry Soo does. And Harry cooks at 275*, which creates a hotter coal bed.

I'd say Master Soo learned that from here. I got it from Kevin Kruger years ago.

 

[Lynn Dollar]

I've buried my chunks, cooked at 350* and still got white smoke.

 

[timothy]

Personally I don't have a problem with white smoke. It usually lasts a half hour and turns to TBS. Some of that is steam or water vapor burning off and that is a sign of proper moisture content in your smokewood.
I like what your doing Lynn, (good read) like you said before, you do you.

 

[Lynn Dollar]

Yeah, well, Harry Soo gets away with burying his chunks, because those comp guys doctor up their meats with sauces, injections, marinades and several rubs ........... until any creosote on their meats is so hidden, no one can find it. Even a KCBS judge.

But you're right, you do you ............ even if I don't quite get where I suggested otherwise. That's puzzling.

And this is most likely, my last post on this site. I put a lot of effort into the above post, to have somebody tell me " you do you " . I get nothing here I can't find by Googling .

I debated for over a week about even posting this here, and the reasons for not posting have come to fruition.

 

[John K BBQ]

Lynn - I think it's a pretty cool experiment. I might give it try the next time I fire up my WSM. I think you were wise to put a smaller grate on the bottom to keep the wood off the bottom of the cooker.

Maybe try a doughnut method where the hot coals are in the center,, all the way down on the grate and then unlit coals all the way around? Maybe this way some embers will fall down and ignite the chunks right away, and the smoke will have to come up thru fully lit coals.

 

[Lynn Dollar]

I did this cook for me. Strictly for me. And I thought I would share what I found here.

That's it, period.

But you do you, timmy, you do you.

 

[GaryP]

I remember hearing stump say that on pitmasters years ago. I figured there had to be something to it as not only stump but many other teams have great success with gravity smokers. I've never used one myself, but having cooked on an offset with thin blue, or usually no trace of smoke at all, I can definitely tell a difference between white/grey and a very clean fire.

I find this as interesting as the time harry ran the wsm as a stick burner. Some say why bother to mess with what works, but I love seeing and reading about new methods. This seems like a perfect way to replicate the gravity fed smoke with the lit coals and embers burning the wood chunks and rising. Nice write up Lynn, and a fun read.

I have to wonder if the effect is similar to what they do in modern diesels with the high temps "cleaning" the smoke by burning out the particulates in the exhaust.

I have a few tri tips to cook at higher temp this Friday in the 22 and might just give it go. On a personal note, I've gained a lot of knowledge from you Lynn especially when it comes to offsets and would be sorry to see you step away. Thanks again for the read.

 

[Joe T Gomez]

Lynn your bbq looks amazing I don’t use that much wood look like it works for you

 

[Lynn Dollar]

You might be wondering, if I have a Masterbuilt GF, then why am I messing with the WSM ?

Because last time I went out to fire up the MB 560, the fan did not come on. I think I've fixed the issue, but I never know.

 

[Timothy F. Lewis]

Everyone has something that works for them, I have experimented with several methods (not this one yet) but, the full course of wood on the bottom has provided excellent results in my experience. I will never say that there are not other methods which will render stellar results but, until I try one, I tend to hold my tongue.
I do my best to not be the guy that says “that’ll never work” because more often than not it DOES work! My brother is quite a nay sayer when something is not his idea. You stop learning when you don’t try something new, I seem to learn something daily too bad it’s the “don’t put your thumb THERE!“ lesson when pounding nails!

 

[Dustin Dorsey]

This is a really cool idea, especially for short cooks. My Smokey Joe is mainly used as a place to start my charcoal chimney. I've got the grate.

 

[timothy]

Yeah, well, Harry Soo gets away with burying his chunks, because those comp guys doctor up their meats with sauces, injections, marinades and several rubs ........... until any creosote on their meats is so hidden, no one can find it. Even a KCBS judge.

But you're right, you do you ............ even if I don't quite get where I suggested otherwise. That's puzzling.

And this is most likely, my last post on this site. I put a lot of effort into the above post, to have somebody tell me " you do you " . I get nothing here I can't find by Googling .

I debated for over a week about even posting this here, and the reasons for not posting have come to fruition.

I meant it as a compliment ( or I thought )
I said I liked what your doing, and it was a good read, and you do you, as in think outside the box, experiment and don't follow the crowd. In other words just be you.
Sorry I even replied to your post.

 

[Garry Milner]

OK, thin blue smoke vs white smoke.

I typically use about 8 pieces of wood in each smoke for pork butt. I place them half buried into the unlit coals then distribute the dozen or so lit cols over the top. Very soon I see clouds of white smoke then after a while it goes away and I can't see anything coming out of the top vent. When I look inside the door I see there is still some unburned portions of wood, the coals are burning but not much smoke. So I then shake the smoker a little, or open the door and poke around or add another couple of pieces to get things smoking again.

Is this wrong? Am I overdoing it? Someone suggested I use more wood to help the flavor of the meat, and sometimes I add more wood to keep the smoke going.