Ribs turned out funky, what went wrong?

[seabass77]

I smoked 3 racks of BBQ wings yesterday.  The texture/tenderness was perfect, but the ribs had a very pronounced burnt/carbon coating on the outside.  Here are some details. 

- 2 hours on smoker

- 2 hours on the crutch

- Electric Brinkmann smoker

Now, this smoker can be hard to control temp with at times, and with the amount of gaps between the lid and the opening for the element, there can me more oxygen in the unit then I like, so chips catching on fire happens more then I care for.  But this seems like more then just a couple instances of flare ups. 

Like I said, they turned out great otherwise, just this burnt coating. 

Any ideas?

 

[bmudd14474]

what color was your smoke?

 

[padronman]

Im thinking you used too much wood which caused you to get a billowing white smoke and not the thin blue some we all crave.  With white smoke you got a creosote coating on al your meat.  Not desireable. 

 

[seabass77]

O.K.  I'm sure that's what it was.  I didn't even know that "too much smoke" was possible.  I had white smoke billowing out of the thing.  How do I get the right smoke and how much wood should I use?  If the wood starts on fire, is that a problem?

Thanks, 

Joe

 

[padronman]

I have an Electric and use 2 oz of wood or less....depending on what I am smoking.  Billowing white smoke is a bad bad thing.  That's where you got the burnt probably bitter tarry flavor.  You want the wood to smoke at a slow pace......giving off a "Thin blue smoke" TBS   that way the food tastes like the wood you use and not the creosote off a telephone pole

How much wood did you put in?  Vents open? 

Scott

 

[seabass77]

No vents on this unit, I had in two large chunks plus a couple handfuls of chips every 30 minutes or so. 

 

[padronman]

Yeah way too much.  I am suspecting the chips are whats catching on fire.  I use 2 oz of chunks and that will usually give me smoke throughout even a Butt for 14 hours.   I do not use chips at all......and never have to re-load my smoker. 

Scott