Controling amount of smoke in a stick burner

[Miles]

I have always used charcoal for fuel and and just added a few chunks of wood for smoke. Now I have a reverse flow that will be burning wood only. I have just done the initial burn off and spent a day practicing controlling the temps and amount of smoke. I can get the CC close to the temp I want but way too much smoke. When I let the fire burn down smaller and open the firebox air inlets a bit I get less smoke but cannot get the heat I want.
Any suggestions?
I have also always cooked with the exhaust stack wide opened and used the Air inlets to control heat. Does anyone use the chimney cover to help control heat and or smoke?

[Frank_Cox]

Here's a video I made a long time ago that might help....

[Big T]

That's the method that I use and I've learned to tweak my adjustments a little depending on the weather.

[Puff]

Miles

I never used the chimney cover to control flow. It's always wide open. My RF is used just as you described. Firebox dampers control the entire fire management. I'm thinking there are too many variables here to pinpoint one cause so I have to ask first...
Are your dimension in the firebox, cook chamber, throat and stack correct?
Is the wood dry?
Are you getting thin blue smoke or puffy white billowing smoke?
What is the highest temp reached inside the cook chamber?

I will say that a huge fire in my RF is a detriment. The smaller fire, fed every 45-55 minutes really work great for me. That video was my first lesson in managing my fire. Then, about 10 make believe cooking sessions helped me dial things in

[Miles]

Thanks for the replies.
I followed the formula I found on this site for firebox size, size of opening from firebox to CC, and the size of the smoke stack to match the volume of my tank.
Once got the fire up and running I closed the vents a bit to get the temp down to about 225. the temp kept rising to about 4900 with gobs of white/gray smoke coming out the stack.
I let the fire burn down to a smaller size, following suggestions of Rodcrafter, I managed to get thin blue smoke but only 190 degrees. When I open the vents a little to get the heat up a bit the temp would overshoot to 350-400. I know it will take a lot of experimentation, with the size of fire and amount of draft. It was so simple with straight charcoal.
Wood is dry but it was dead for a long time before I bucked and split the logs. It may be too far into rot for this. I have some fresher stuff I felled last fall and have had split and stacked for about a year. I'll try that this coming weekend.
Thanks again
Al

[Puff]

Well Al,

I read some where about age of wood and vaguely remember 1 yr dry is very good. I have some old 16" diameter oak tha was un split and lying in the woods, I can kick off 6-8 inches of rot and get to a core dri 4" center. What a waste but I was lazy and the ground eats the oaks quickly.

I'm sure will will establish a medium temp with size adjustment and air flow. M write down on log sheets initially...for us genius types , it makes great review material and may clearly illustrate a short coming in your fire management. Course, you gotta remember to read that stuff after all is said and done

[Frank_Cox]

Yep what they said!
Old rotting wood will cause white smoke also. The biggest Thing to remember in fire management is the coals in the coal bed cause the heat the wood is there for flavor and making more coals. The flames themselves do add heat but they are not the main source of heat.

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[Miles]

Thanks for those replies.
Of course I meant 490 degrees not 4900.
When you say the heat is from the bed of coals do you mean coals from wood or the bed of charcoal?
I have two charcoal burners that work great, but I want to use only wood in this smoker. Not even one briquette of charcoal.
I used to buy Kingsford, 20 pounds for less than ten bucks. Then the price started climbing. 10, 12 13 bucks for 20 pounds. Then the size of the bags started getting smaller, $14 for 18 pounds then $16. Then the bags went to 16 pounds. Now, at the only store I can get them on the Island, they are $14.95 plus 5% fed sales tax and another 7% provincial sales tax for only 11 Pounds of charcoal. If I do a 15 hour burn to cook up a couple of briskets and a shoulder or two it costs about 35-40 bucks just for fuel. I'd rather spend that on ribs.
That's why I found this site and built my reverse flow, I wanted to use wood only and my other smokers are geared for charcoal only with just a few chunks of wood for the smoke and flavour. I read about stick smokers and assumed that's all that was used, sticks. Am I wrong here or are there guys who use wood only?
Once again, thank you for your help.
Al

[Rodcrafter]

I only use wood after my smokers get lit. The coal bed is the same with charcoal and with wood. It is much hotter than the flame.


Making memories.

[Puff]

Ever watch a blacksmith in real life or even in an old cowboy picture, they rest the metal in the hot coals to heat the heck out of it, not the flames. This gives the most heat and transference. Once my lump coal base is running, and splits I add on the top of the pile eventually ignite, fire and turn to glowing coals allowing me to repeat that step in about 45-55 minutes for the next 5 hours or so. This is also where you need to watch for white smoke (YUK) in between feelings. Minimize that by using well seasoned splits that ignite and burn.

[Miles]

Well that may be my problem, I'm not getting a bed of coals with this wood. The sticks, splits?, are burning down to ash with no real coak bed. Even with the vent closed down to only get 190 degrees. I'll have to work on getting a coal bed then adjust for the desired temp.
thanks

[Puff]

Surely worth a try....might be pleasantly surprised

[Miles]

Well I've tried four more practice runs, then cooked some ribs.
I started a fire and kept adding wood to try and get a bed of coals but the wood just burns to white ash with no coal bed.Could be the wood type, Alder. I've used it my air tight in the house as it burns clean with no black soot. It doesn't have the BTU that fir does so I would only use it in spring and fall when I didn't really need a lot of heat output. I never noticed the lack of coals though, get lots with Fir or maple.
I tried again with the log grate removed. I have a grate made out of 5/8 round bar about two or so inches above the bottom of the FB. Seemed to help a bit but still could not get clean smoke at the temp I want. I can get light blue smoke at a low temp-175, or more whitish smoke at 250.
The next try I broke down and put in a chimney of hot charcoal and a couple of splits. That worked better for the first hour or two. After that I had to and a bit more wood. Every time I added the wood I would get white smoke for 10 to 15 minutes until the split got going well then it would slowly turn blue. Could be the wood is not dry enough.
One thing I did discover while doing all this, my CC is about 40 degrees hotter at the top grate than it is at the bottom grate. The temp difference is closer to 100 when the air intake is opened wider at start up. The hot air and smoke is leaving the FB travelling under the BP and when it gets to the end of the tank [propane tank] if follows the curve of the end of the tank and travels just under the top and then out the chimney. I have the bottom of the chimney about six inches or so below the top of the tank. When I can close the air intakes a bit the temp difference lessens. I thought I may have too much draft in the chimney, although I made the length what was recommended in the formula. I tried closing the chimney cover a bit ,to slow down the speed of the airflow, just enough so smoke started coming out from around the CC lid. the temp at the top and bottom grate then equalized. I ran it like that for the rest of the test and the top temp stayed the same as the bottom. The smoke still went whiter when I added wood but the temps were good.
I will try to cook something next weekend using charcoal as fuel and adding just a bit of wood for smoke and flavor, just as I do with my other smokers. If that works I think I can assume my smoke problem is the wood not the smoker?
Thanks again for the help.

[Puff]

From all I've read....don't use fir....on another note, how big are the splits in diameter and where does the air enter the firebox in relation to the bottom of your internal fire grate? Is the feed of the damper below the bottom of the wood grate?

Grasping at straws for info thinking it may trigger a thought by any reader... I always have my " LET CHUCK SNAP UP" story to prove its easy to stupidly misinterpret anything!!

[Big T]

Alder has a lower btu rating(17.4 million per cord) than oak(26.4) or hickory(27.6) so it's not going to put out the heat that they would. I also know that older wood burns fast and doesn't leave a bed of coals. I use a lot of oak, pecan and hickory and I can tell when the wood has passed it's prime because it doesn't perform as well. I wouldn't get to discouraged if you built your smoker using the pit calculator, I'd try to find some different wood and give it a shot. When I add more splits to the FB, I leave the door open for a few minutes until the wood has a good flame and it helps to avoid the white smoke.

[Rodcrafter]

Yep, good hard wood like oak and hickory are hard to beat. The part about the stack being below the top cooking grate, going by the calculator the stack is the correct length from the surface of the CC right? Don't count the portion that is inside the CC. I'm sorry if we already talked about this before but it comes up from time to time.


Making memories.

[Mo Smoke]

Definitely try some good hard wood like Oak or Hickory. I think thats the key to getting a bed of coals out of the wood. Personally I don't see anything wrong with starting with a little charcoal. I tried both ways and I couldn't tell a difference in anything except the amount of work it took to get the fire started. The Hardwood will also help with the higher temp you want to get out of a smaller fire. I always get a little white smoke when I am adding a split during the cook but it doesn't last long and I don't think it hurts based on my outcomes so far. I noticed that pre heating splits on the firebox cuts down on how long it takes to burn thru that white smoke phase though. But again, not a huge deal because your fire isn't that big and the length of time it takes burn thru to blue smoke won't take long. A couple of other tips I picked up from the guys is to add a split right before you get ready to turn or baste your meat. Leave the firebox door slightly open during this time as well. This way the extra air will help ignite the fresh wood faster, the white smoke will either go out of the firebox door, or the cook chamber door. By the time you close the cook chamber door and the firebox door, most of the white smoke will be gone and only clean blue will pass over the meat.

[Miles]

Thanks for that,
No I wouldn't think of putting fir in my cooker.
Real hardwood is rather rare here. We have some broad leaf maple but it's a soft maple, not the same as the eastern maple, then some gary oak which is protected by the tree hugging Govt. The only time I've seen hickory is on an axe handle. I will try to hunt down some apple.
Alder and wild cherry are the wood of choice for the pig cookers here. They are not cooked in enclosed smokers but in open pits, such as the bottom of a water or oil tank, with a spit about three feet above the fire. They just keep adding wood throughout the roasting, as the pit is open there is little smoke. I really thought alder would work well in the offset and that is the reason I built it, I'm surrounded by millions of board feet of alder, cedar and fir. Cedar to mill into wood and pay the bills, fir to heat the house and alder to heat the meat. I'm not giving up on the alder though, may have to let it dry a bit more and practice with the vents until I get it right.

[Puff]

That's how they do whole hog in northern Vermont. Not really smoked but more like a rotisserie chicken.

Hey Al, what part of the country are you in? I keep taking for granted that there is so much oak here I never gave places with little wood any thought.

[Miles]

I live on Pender Island, part of the San Juan archipelago in the Gulf of Georgia, British Columbia, Canada. About half way between Vancouver BC and Victoria BC off the west coast of mainland Washington. I'm about 22 nautical miles north of Friday Harbour, San Juan Island, Washington Pender is 13 Sq miles in size and has a population of approx. 2,250.

Yes, just like rotisserie chicken, the Alder gives it a real nice flavour, mild enough as to not overpower the taste of the pork, but enough to enhance it. When I cook in my Weber Smokey Mountain, I use charcoal for the heat and Alder for the smoke/flavour.

A lot of gas grills here as well as Weber kettle charcoal grills, a couple of pig cookers but only one offset smoker, mine.
Makes it kind of tough to get local help with these things as I've never actually seen one until I built this reverse flow.
Had fun making it and have a lot of people waiting to try some good bbq, they like what comes off my water smoker

[pawatch]

I usually use a fully involved chimney mixed with charcoal & lump. Then I add a couple of splits to get things going. Let it settle in. Set to your desired temp. When the temp starts dropping add another split. Keep repeating the process.

[Puff]

Well that even sounds incredible... I can only say NJ has a S#!tload of asphalt for a place they like to call "garden state"...no archipelago gulf stuff here....population 9,000,000 +

[Miles]

Nine mil, that's about a third of the population of this whole country. I go to Seattle once in a blue moon, that many people jammed together is kind of hard to take for more than a day.

I did a cook on the smoker yesterday using charcoal as the fuel, and just a little Alder for the smoke and flavour. Worked well. I controlled the heat and just had a bit of blue smoke from the small chunks of wood I added.
The heat still seems to flow under the baffle plate and around the end of the tank cap then straight across the top of the CC. The top of the end cap opposite the FB is the hottest point. That end of the top grate is 10-15 deg hotter than the other end and about 30 degrees hotter than the the lower ,main grate. I cooked some ribs, good, but they didn't have much of a smoke ring and not much smoke flavour either. I'm thinking of welding the metal I cut out of the FB under the top of the tank where the end cap mates with the tank. My thought was that plate may direct the heat and smoke a little lower as it enters the CC.

[bluecatfish]

Those connecting rods in it would certainly spice it up! Sounds like you are getting closer to solving the problem. Keep up the good work.

[forty_creek]

I'm anxious to hear if this mod helps or not.
Strong Work


Drankin, Smokin and Dreamin

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