Help me understand the difference btwn AMNPS vs. wood smoking

kryinggame · May 17, 2012

Tonight, I smoked up a batch of smoked shrimp. Since shrimp is ready in a relatively short period, I decided to use wood chips instead of my AMNPS.

I got the MES up to 275, then turned it down to 225 degrees. Then I loaded it with a cup of soaked chips (apple and hickory) after a few minutes, I noticed a strong amount of smoke coming from the top. Normally when I use my AMNPS, I see a bit of smoke from the pellets but not as much some as wood.

I'm curious why there's an obvious difference from the two. Now the final results are always good smoked food. But to be honest,until I smell the sweetness of the Pitmaster pellets burning, I'm always wondering if my AMNPS is burning the pellets. Unfortunaltey on a few occassions, it wasn't.

So gang, why do I get more smoke from wood chips over my AMNP?

Thanks much!

scarbelly · May 17, 2012

The AMNPS was designed to give you just the right amount of TBS for smoking. When you burn wood chips you really dont have a lot of control on how fast they burn or how much smoke the will generate.

diggingdogfarm · May 17, 2012

kryinggame said:
Then I loaded it with a cup of soaked chips (apple and hickory) after a few minutes, I noticed a strong amount of smoke coming from the top.

kryinggame said:
Normally when I use my AMNPS, I see a bit of smoke from the pellets but not as much some as wood.
So gang, why do I get more smoke from wood chips over my AMNP?

A couple of different reasons, you're seeing a lot of steam with the soaked chips and there are likely more chips smoking at a given moment than there are pellets smoking in the AMNPS.

~Martin

hmcm · May 17, 2012

I found that I get a lot more smoke from apple wood than other woods for some reason. The AMNPS is slow burn in a small quantity. Like Scarbelly said, you don't have any control over the wood burn rate. It all burns at the same time whereas the AMNPS burns from one end to the other.

deltadude · May 18, 2012

I can't explain exactly why when you use wood chips there is a lot more heavy smoke especially white smoke compared with pellets or sawdust in a AWNPS or AWNS. Maybe there is bark in the wood chips and also the initial combustion just produces more smoke just like twigs before you get a real fire on the main wood. Moisture from soaking is not producing that smoke or at least it is minimal, I have done both dry and wet chips and the smoke is the same. Thus most experienced MES owners using wood chips via the chip loader, use a very small amount of chips, 8-12 chips at a time that's it, after several replenishment of 8-12 at a time you will have a hot bed of ash and you can increase to about 12-18 chips, anything more and you are asking for a more acidic flavored smoke instead of the sweet TBS.

kyta66 · May 19, 2012

Great info, never thought of that!! Thanks

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Help me understand the difference btwn AMNPS vs. wood smoking

kryinggame

Smoking Fanatic

scarbelly

Gone but not forgotten. RIP

diggingdogfarm

Master of the Pit

hmcm

Smoke Blower

deltadude

Master of the Pit

kyta66

Newbie

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