Thin blue smoke


 
N

NeilK

TVWBB Member
I have smoked 3 times now on my 22.5 wsm and love the results. My only question is during the first hour or so I get alot of smoke mostly white coming out of the vent. I use the minion method with the wood chunks around the perimeter maybe one in the center. Is my goal to see a small thin blue smoke immediately?? Thanks for all of your responses
 
The white smoke is all the fuel catching but not quite lit yet. Once lit it goes to TBS. I give it a few minutes to chill out then add the food.
 
with the minion method the coals are never all lit so will I ever get TBS? How long a burn will I get say at 275 degrees with one full chimney of kingsford and NO minion method?
 
As you're smoke-wood catches fire and starts to char that's when you see the white smoke. As it carbonizes the white smoke dissipates and that's when the TBS starts to happen.
If you ever use lump you can see this quite easily. The fully carbonized pieces will barely throw off any white smoke but the brownish UN-carbonized pieces will.

Tim
 
You could, but I only do that to burn off bark that looks moldy. One hour of white smoke is completely normal to me depending on how many chunks and how big they are. One tip I read on here from Kevin, is to split the chunks into 3-4 or more smaller pieces. You get out of the white smoke and into the TBS much faster.
HTH
Tim
 
I always put my wood around the ring, never in the center, but some of that smoke you see at the start of a cook is from dumping lit on top of unlit briquettes. They all have binders that will smoke a bit at first, but Kingsford in the blue bag is ten times or more worse than the others. If you don't believe it, try skipping the wood and dump some lit K on unlit K. I tried that a while back and couldn't believe the smoke I got.
 
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Neil, you can use Kingsford if you want. Just wait on TBS before putting the meat on, and you'll see that quicker if you start off with more lit. Some folks suggest waiting for the entire top layer of the ring to be ashed over before putting on meat, and yeah, I guess if that's the case, your charcoal is probably pretty close to burning clean.

Personally, I prefer lump though, especially for my unlit. You can get Royal Oak lump at most Walmarts, so lump in general isn't too hard to find. The best brands that last longest can be, though.
 
White smoke is not a problem in a bullet style smoker. I've experienced the "bad" smoke, it will leave your lips numb and the BBQ will not taste right. I've never had that happen in the WSM or other bullet smoker. OTOH, my Longhorn has to be carefully managed to avoid that problem.
 
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