Tom Horsman - Using just wood in a gravity feed makes home made charcoal


 
Joe Anshien

Joe Anshien

TVWBB Platinum Member
This is a cool experiment. When he opens the hopper near the end I was quite surprised at the unexpected result.
 
I wasn't . I layer charcoal/chunk/charcoal/chunk ............ and the chunks at the very top will look just like that, while the charcoal around them has not ignited. Wood ignites a lower temp than charcoal.

He must have some strange taste buds, because I can't imagine those ribs tasted " delicious " . Too much creosote.
 
I was thinking that. The charcoaled wood was probably a result of the heat without O2. I am thinking the extra wood in the ash pan was probably not necessary;-) I am waiting to see if he makes a video using the charcoaled wood to cook.
 
He had way too much white smoldering smoke.

I saw that vid last week, and I see now it has 34,000 views. Its making Tom some money.

I quit Tom early last year after I'd bought my Masterbuilt GF. The lid on top of the hopper leaked badly. Tom had put a tadpole gasket on his and I followed his instructions to the " T " . After that, it leaked even worse, way worse with Tom's gasket. I had to take it off in the middle of a cook and put the old one back on.

I noticed later on, Tom had taken that red tadpole gasket off of his Masterbuilt GF. But he never acknowledged that it was a mistake, nor made a vid correcting the mistake, nor take down the vid showing how to install the gasket.
 
Lynn Dollar said:
He had way too much white smoldering smoke.

I saw that vid last week, and I see now it has 34,000 views. Its making Tom some money.

I quit Tom early last year after I'd bought my Masterbuilt GF. The lid on top of the hopper leaked badly. Tom had put a tadpole gasket on his and I followed his instructions to the " T " . After that, it leaked even worse, way worse with Tom's gasket. I had to take it off in the middle of a cook and put the old one back on.

I noticed later on, Tom had taken that red tadpole gasket off of his Masterbuilt GF. But he never acknowledged that it was a mistake, nor made a vid correcting the mistake, nor take down the vid showing how to install the gasket.
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I just added an extra gasket (did not take off original) but have not tried it yet. I have a couple of chickens I plan on doing (weather permitting) soon. I want to know what Tom is doing with all those many grills that he is not keeping. I am guessing he can't possibly keep them all.
Do you still have your Masterbuilt?
 
Joe Anshien said:
I just added an extra gasket (did not take off original) but have not tried it yet. I have a couple of chickens I plan on doing (weather permitting) soon. I want to know what Tom is doing with all those many grills that he is not keeping. I am guessing he can't possibly keep them all.
Do you still have your Masterbuilt?
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Oh yeah, I have the 560 and I'm seriously thinking about upgrading to the 1050. I'm watching for some good off season sales but best I've found so far is Academy has it for $750.

Here's what I've done about the hopper leaks and it works great.

https://www.lss-mods.com/product_details.phtml/hopper_cover

Tom still has the vid up .......... Don't do this ......... and the gasket is expensive stuff, around $50.

 
And now Horsman is an advocate of clean smoke, not just in the vid but in the comments, where he says showing a lot of smoke from the pellet pooper is a marketing ploy.

 
I just did 2 beer can chickens the other night on my MB800. I am really liking this thing. I spent most of the cook in the basement watching a movie while changing temps. I started out at 250 and went to 475 gradually through the cook. It may be something I was doing but I also get much cleaner smoke right from the start with the MB over my WSM. I seemed to always struggle to get clean smoke from my WSM for about the first hour. The only thing I can think of is the MB gets a lot more air because of the fan.
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Walter " Stump " McDowell invented gravity feed. He was a HVAC man who competed in BBQ and appeared in a couple of seasons of BBQ Pitmasters. I heard him say on the show " the smoke on a GF is cleaned by the superheated air " . I was skeptical when I heard that. But after cooking on my 560, I'm a believer.

All of the air that enters the cook chamber has to pass through the ignited charcoal. IDK what temp charcoal burns at, but its high enough to burn the impurities from the smoke. Wood does not burn at as high a temp, which is why Horsman got white smoke from putting wood chunks in the hopper.

When I initially fire up the 560, I get a lot of white smoke but it fades as soon as enough charcoal gets ignited to clean the smoke.

What I envision happens in the bottom of the hopper is like this

 
That makes sense. Also when starting up I usually only wait 3-5 minutes before closing the bottom and top of the hopper and turning on the grill so the fan gets the coals burning. Within about 10 minutes I have clean smoke and am about to 250. Using the WSM or kettle I would still have the coals in the chimney heating up.
 
Lynn Dollar said:
Walter " Stump " McDowell invented gravity feed. He was a HVAC man who competed in BBQ and appeared in a couple of seasons of BBQ Pitmasters. I heard him say on the show " the smoke on a GF is cleaned by the superheated air " . I was skeptical when I heard that. But after cooking on my 560, I'm a believer.

All of the air that enters the cook chamber has to pass through the ignited charcoal. IDK what temp charcoal burns at, but its high enough to burn the impurities from the smoke. Wood does not burn at as high a temp, which is why Horsman got white smoke from putting wood chunks in the hopper.

When I initially fire up the 560, I get a lot of white smoke but it fades as soon as enough charcoal gets ignited to clean the smoke.

What I envision happens in the bottom of the hopper is like this

Click to expand...
That's why I like to put my wood chunks over the unlit and spread lit on top of them in my WSM.
As the wood burns the smoke passes thru the hot lit and cleanses it.
Same principle. Nice to hear somebody else agrees.
 
timothy said:
That's why I like to put my wood chunks over the unlit and spread lit on top of them in my WSM.
As the wood burns the smoke passes thru the hot lit and cleanses it.
Same principle. Nice to hear somebody else agrees.
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I've been wondering about putting wood chunks below the WSM charcoal grate. Maybe add some fully lit charcoal with them. Then the smoke from the chunks would travel up through the charcoal bed. Just something I thought about recently.
 
Lynn Dollar said:
I've been wondering about putting wood chunks below the WSM charcoal grate. Maybe add some fully lit charcoal with them. Then the smoke from the chunks would travel up through the charcoal bed. Just something I thought about recently.
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Maybe on a standard method, but with the minion method having lit going both ways, one would think it would be hard to control temps.
BUT, you never know until you try it!:)
 
I would always use the minion method. I don't think the smoke from the wood was my issue though. I think it was my charcoal. Even lighting it in the chimney I would get lots of smoke until it was all lit up. Since it will be asked, I use Kingsford Pro, Cooks from Aldi, and another, but all briquets, I haven't used lump yet, but I do have some to try.
 
timothy said:
Maybe on a standard method, but with the minion method having lit going both ways, one would think it would be hard to control temps.
BUT, you never know until you try it!:)
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I think it would be difficult with the Minion Method, just have to settle for Harry Soo's method of burying the chunks in the coals and cooking at higher temps, like 275.
 
Joe Anshien said:
I would always use the minion method. I don't think the smoke from the wood was my issue though. I think it was my charcoal. Even lighting it in the chimney I would get lots of smoke until it was all lit up. Since it will be asked, I use Kingsford Pro, Cooks from Aldi, and another, but all briquets, I haven't used lump yet, but I do have some to try.
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I've not burned all brands of charcoal, but every brand I've burned puts off white smoke in the chimney until the temps in the chimney get higher. Some puts off more than others. And I can't recall all the brands I've burned over the years.
 
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