Controling amount of smoke in a stick burner

[Puff]

Duh.... Sometimes it's amazing what I don't think of. Great idea ...thanks , RC

[THEFERMANATOR]

I use 1 full chimney of charcoal that I get burning HOT with a small fan, dump that into my firebox basket, spread it out, then I stack up smaller pieces of live oak(it's what we have, so it's what I use. HARD stuff to split, but burns HOT, and makes good Q) over it while the basket is still pulled out. Once it gets burning decently(flames coming up 2-3 feet), I push the basket in, close the door over most of the way(but not all the way), and with the vents wide open, I let it get burning that way. Once the smoker starts to heat up, I've found it drafts MUCH better than it does cold. One thing I do thats different than most is I will stoke mine up HOT right from the get go. I shoot for 450 or higher right off the bat to burn off any cooked on stuff from the last cooking, also this breaks the last cooking off the grates, so they clean nice and easy with a brush. Also the process of doing this will burn the forebox down to a NICE bed of coal to keep the cook going once I turn it down. And I shoot for about 250-275 before I put my food in, and I have found 250-275 empty will have me around 225-230 filled with food in the smoker. Also I fill my drip pan with water as it helps to keep the temps stable, and prevents spikes in the temp. Just keep your temps down to the 220-225 range or else you go through ALOT of water cooking. Once you get it leveled out, feed it a split every 20 minutes or so, and I'm normally pretty good.

[Miles]

Well the Alder I have is dry now but it burns with too much smoke. I used a chimney of charcoal and added the Alder on top. Every time I put on a stick I got vast quantities of smoke. The smoker works great with charcoal for fuel and a bit of alder for smoke and flavor but just wont work using Alder for fuel. Real hardwood is scarce around here, looks like I built a offset I can't use, unless I can find some oak. It's a very large fine for cutting those down.

[Rodcrafter]

Are you preheating the sticks? I say that because in my experience with stick burners the hotter the next piece of wood the less it smokes. For example if I throw a cold stick on some charcoal to get the fire started it will smoke and smolder until it catches on fire and will continue to smoke until engulfed in flames. But if I have the next sticks inside my FB where it can't catch on fire, for the 45 minutes until it is that sticks turn. When I toss it on the coals it will burst into flames with no sign of beginning to burn. It is very nice, I learned that trick from Frank Cox last gathering. We learn some cool stuff at these gatherings.


Making memories.

[Dirtytires]

Great tip....goal will be to keep them warm yet out of the fire.

[Miles]

All may not be lost,
I cooked a pork loin on Monday that tasted like a creosote log due to too much smoke. I just could not get the thing to burn with just thin blue smoke. I used a chimney of nice hot charcoal to start.I was pre heating the splits on the top of the firebox. I did preheat the smoker to burn off any bad stuff and have all the metal up to temp. No joy.

Yesterday after work I fired it up to clean it . After I washed it out I thought I would try again to get the correct smoke without sacrificing a hunk o meat in the process. I managed to burn at 225 degrees for three hours with just a whiff of light blue smoke. What was the difference between yesterday and Monday? Same wood out of the same wheelbarrow I used on monday, but on monday I used a stoker to maintain the temp, yesterday I did not. Every time the stoker started the fan smoke would billow out the stack.

I have used a stoker for years on my Weber smokey mountain cooker and even my Weber kettle. It has worked flawlessly.
I just heap in some charcoal, add a few burning ones, throw on a couple of small pieces of wood for smoke and flavour and close it up. I could go to work or down to the store with the stoker maintaining a constant 225 degrees. When the food alarm went off I pulled the meat out and everything was good. Sure didn't work that way with wood for fuel, not Alder anyway.

Alder smells great and has nice flavour but burns completely away just like a piece of newspaper. It will not make a bed of coals. Yesterday I had to have a very small fire and add a stick every 10 minutes, but I did get the smoke and temps I wanted. I'm sure the smoker will give me more satisfaction when I can get some real hardwood.

[Dirtytires]

It has been said that stokers/gurus do not work on a reverse flow as there is too much trapped heat in the baffle plate. The changes in the firebox temp sometimes take as long as 20 min to see in the cook chamber. This apparently screws up the algorithm in the device to add air (ie heat) at the wrong time.

Glad you got it worked out.

[Rodcrafter]

[Miles]

Actually the stoker kept the heat at a fairly constant temp. Not quite as steady as my Weber but within 5 degrees swing. as soon as the temp dropped to 224 the fan came on and it stopped as the temp went through 225 It may have continued to rise close to 230 before starting to drop again. The stoker works quite well on mine if I burn straight charcoal. But my smoker isn't a huge 200 -500 gallon unit.
It was just the amount of smoke it was making that was the problem.

[rikun]

Did those plates solve your temp/smoke issues?

I'm having similar issues, wood burns too fast, leaves no coal bed behind, upper racks are way hotter and also I'm lacking a lot of smoke flavour. Doesn't really matter what kind of wood I use, seems like everything just burns so fast they leave no flavour behind.

How big is your BP gap and the end of CC in percentage? I'm thinking at 100% I have too much draft going on...

[mp4]

My temps stabilized when I closed down my baffle plate gap to about 75% of the throat size. I still haven't welded it in because I want to get some consistency in the wood I'm burning so I get a fair comparison. It might take a year or so of cooking before I set it in place. I actually used the throat cutout so it would follow the contour of the tanks bell end.

[Miles]

The plates I welded under the top of my tank did solve the issue of the top grate being hotter than the bottom grate, made no difference to the smoke.

[Rodcrafter]

The plates I welded under the top of my tank did solve the issue of the top grate being hotter than the bottom grate, made no difference to the smoke.

That's interesting


Making memories.

[Squiggle]

[RandyB]

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

Get a couple 55 gallon drums and make your own charcoal...

[Squiggle]

That's what I'm doing, I'm half way through making a charcoal retort kiln now. Hopefully it will save a few dollars.

[RandyB]

That's what I'm doing, I'm half way through making a charcoal retort kiln now. Hopefully it will save a few dollars.

Never occurred to me until I read this thread. My friend now runs a professional catering business. He had 55 gallon barrels with a huge whole big enough for a shovel of coals to removed cut into the bottom-side of each barrel and simply had drilled holes for cris-cross re bar. He'd throw logs in there and as the coals dropped, he'd shovel them over to his BBQ pit made of cinder-blocks.

I guess there's some steep learning when transitioning from a small rig to a stick burner.

[Rodcrafter]

I think I'll make one of those charcoal making rascals too. So I'm hoping you're going to start a thread about it squiggle.


Making memories.

[Squiggle]

Sure am dude, progress is slow but the thread will be thorough.

[Rodcrafter]

Cool thanks! Frank and Tom made some one time with video it looks cool


Making memories.

[Miles]

Squiggle, where will we find your thread on a charcoal kiln?

[Squiggle]

It will be in the "charcoal" subsection of "wood, charcoal & other fuels". Hopefully be done in a month or so, all depends on how much time I can spend on it.

[BitBucket]

After 8 pages of thread, I may have missed it someplace, and last post was June, so sorry about coming to the party late:

This doesn't resolve the issue but it might be a good way to refine your testing:

I've seen some businesses use a separate barrel with a grate or bunch of rebar to build their fire in. They burn wood down to coals in that, then shovel them into the pit. Fresh wood could smoke all it wants because it's not traversing the meat as it starts to burn, and you can shovel as few or as many coals in as you want without flare-up or temp spikes. I wouldn't want to do this all the time, but if I needed to diagnose where a problem was in maintaining heat vs. the right type of smoke I might try it.

[Miles]

Well still trying to get this thing to cook with just wood.
So far the Alder creates too much smoke and burns down to ash, no bed of coals.
Works great with charcoal, kingsford cost too much, home made stuff works well but burns a lot of fuel.
I tried the wild cherry on Sunday. It smoked like heck every time i put on a split or two. I did manage to get it to burn cleaner by reducing the size of the fire and adding a small stick about ever 5-10 minutes. Meat was good but way too much smoke from the first part of the burn. Better than the Alder but still not happy. Will continue with the cherry until it's gone.
The Gary Oak from Victoria was gone but have a line on another cord. been down for a year but the guy is just splitting it now. Most likely will not be dry enough for a few months yet.
I will have to use charcoal when cooking for others, just to give them something I'm proud to serve, and experiment with the wood when it's just for me and my wife, poor girl!
Thanks for all the tips and suggestions I hope to post good results once the oak drys.
I saw there is a BBQ joint in Seattle that imports truck loads of mesquite from Texas. I may try to get him to sell me a cord. Don't know about getting it across the boarder though.

[Kcd2016]

You might be careful, mesquite is supposed to be the most smoky and most acrid woods. A few woods around here in order from least to most smokey are oak, hickory, pecan, mesquite. ...I'm not speaking from experience, I've just been doing lots research lately as I've just done my first cook on my newly completed offset.

I noticed you mention you smoking at 225, I read over at amazingribs.com that for 100% wood fires he recommends maintaining around 275 or so because an all wood fire just needs to be that much hotter than a charcoal fire in order to achieve a cleaner combustion. Again, not from experience but my research and Im not sure im sold on this yet but I thought I'd mention it as food for thought. I'm more of a hot and fast bbqer anyway these days.