Originally posted by J Hoke:
It is an entirely different kind of fire.They do require more attention, but I can't say I've ever over-smoked anything, in fact, you wouldn't believe the smoke ring you can get on brisket with a stick burner. Personally I like a lot of smoke. More like traditional open pits.
You can use charcoal in a big offset (I did last week), but they prefer wood, lots of heavy metal to get hot and keep hot. The one fault I find with the wsm is enough smoke.
As long as you leave the exhaust vents always full open you shouldn't get the bad creosote flavor.
I think every bbq'r should try wood cooking just for the experience. It really is different and fun.
J, in my experience with offsets, to get a clean burning fire the INTAKE vent, as well as the exhaust vent, needs to be mostly open, especially with the popular, cheap ones with the small round fireboxes. Obviously, better pits are easier to work with, and some, like a Jambo, are actually designed to be adjusted at the stack. Boy, I'd like one of those.
Rgarding the wsm, though, for some reason, it's easier to oversmoke without water in the pan. You can just use more wood and even add more when cooking with water, at least if the pan is simmering pretty good how I usually keep it, (not TOO low and slow).
As to the smoke ring, I prefer to put meat on pretty cold, especially briskets, and I don't cook at true high heat. One other thing is that while I haven't seen too much discussion on it here, for some reason or another, briquettes are supposed to help your smoke ring, as opposed to lump. I've read of mixing some briquettes in with lump on brisket cooks just for this reason alone.
