Re: using wood

Welcome to the SMF family Tom

Introduce yourself in roll call also & you get a nice welcome to the family from others also.

Now to the question @ hand. A lot depends on the smoker you are using as to weather to use chips, chunks, pellets, or splits. If you can provide that info someone here uses that equipment & can give you the best info for that type of smoker.

I think I corrected the link in Dutch's post. It hat 1 to many http://'s in it.

I have a Chargriller w/ Side firebox. It is very versatile I have used chips to small splits in it. I usually lite a chimney of regular charcoal briquettes the when adding more I add lump charcoal, when lump is lighting it doesn't stink so bad & put the charcoal flavor in the meat. For smoke, as I said chips to splits work, I like using cherry splits. It took me a while to learn what it wants & I am still learning. It is best to try to control temp with the amount of fuel. If you try to cut the air flow you can get creosote. Keep the chimney open all the time to keep the smoke flowing. I do notice that you do use a lot of fuel & the ash drawer will fill up so I turn the coal grate upside down. Check out some of the other mods on the link dutch posted http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...splay.php?f=22 . I bring to grill coal grate up a couple notches & put a water pan (aluminum dollar store special) right next to the firebox opening as a baffle. I use the top rack alot so I don't have the chimney extension.

Another good investment is a digital meat thermometer or 2. I use one for the meat & one at grate level to know the grate temp. The top rack runs much hotter than the main grate area & you can not trust the stock thermometer that came with it Mine runs 150 while @ grate level I show 200 to 225.

I don't want to write a whole book but I hope what I have to say helped some.