White Smoke!!!

White smoke is normal when the smoke wood first heats up enough to begin flashing off water vapor and a small amount of volatiles. Even well-seasoned (cured) smoke wood has a small amount of moisture in it from the humidity in the air. Once the bulk of the water vapor has flashed off, the smoke will thin out and become more transparent...the thin blue everyone speaks of.

You will notice white smoke every time you add smoke wood...there will be a delay with the onset of smoke, when you add, but it will come in time, and this is all a normal part of smoking...nothing to be concerned about. Many using electric smokers preheat the unit and allow the smoke to start rolling before adding food to the smoker.


Smoke on!!!


Eric

Vicious........I'm with you on the nutz part. I have lost sleep more than once thinking about a smoking project. Just wait until you try making sausage........a whole new world of things to go nutz over.

Brad

You're most welcome, ViciousGolden!

Yeah guys, the loosing sleep goes away after you gain more confidence in your skills and more knowledge of the particular project you are engaged in...takes some time and practicing what you want to learn to do better. Take all night smokes, like whole beef brisket or pork shoulder cuts with low & slow, for example: I used to stay up all night and monitor smoke chamber temps and internal temp on digital probes, watch the stalls (plateau)...at some point I decided to simply get things rolling smoothly and not even stick a probe into the meat until the next morning to see how far along cooking had progressed. Of course there are times when I would only get 3 or 4 hours of sleep due to something not agreeing with my plans, which might take some time to correct, but for the most part it all at some point becomes second nature. Now, unless I'm doing something out of the ordinary, or really loading up a smoker with a lot of meat, I don't sweat it.

You'll get into a groove with smoking meats and become much more comfortable with what your doing in time. And don't worry about creating a list of things to smoke and trying to smoke all the things on that list...well, let me rephrase that...don't put a time-frame on items that list., because it will continue growing much faster than you can possibly do it all. Pick things of interest, gather your goods to make it happen and have fun with it. Cooking anything should be fun, and should provide you a way to gain more knowledge and skills. And if things don't go exactly as planned, don''t beat yourself up over it...that takes all the fun out of it...just learn from whatever didn't go quite right and move forward so the next smoke comes through better than the last.

I digressed...enjoy your smoking (meat) addiction!!! lOL!!!


Eric

i add chips from the beginning then add every 30 - 45 min. Only add a palm full at a time.

 In my gen1 MES 40 they cooked to ash .In my new one I use the AMNPS and don't add chips.