Smoking newbie with a few questions

[viper12161]

Hello all!!!

So I am new to smoking. I recently had an electric smoker to get me started, and got hooked. We recently moved into a new house, so I was able to convince the wife (with lots of begging) that I needed a new grill. I ended up getting a dual fuel with propane on one side and charcoal on the other with an attached fire box. I am trying to smoke for the first time with it and having a few issues I had some questions on. For startup I am using Royal Oak wood lump. Got it going in a chimney then dumped it in and added some Kingsford Hickory wood chuncks. When I first got it going, I was having a hell of a time keeping the temp down...kept spiking up to 300 on me. Finally got it under control, but now I have had to add in 2 additional full chimneys off lump to keep it going. Smoker has been going for about 7 hours now. I am cooking a 4.5lb piece of pork shoulder picnic. Should I be just adding in wood chunks (that have been soaked), or should I be adding in charcoal to keep fire going, I seem to have gotten it to stay steady at 250, but I feel like I am going through a ton of charcoal and the meat is only at 163. Again, big newbie here so I apologize in advance for any stupid questions.

Thanks!
Dave

 

[RiversideSm0ker]

First off, welcome to SMF. Glad to have you here. Next, I am going to say that you don't want to soak any wood that you put into your firebox. That water is not going to help with any kind of consistency and will not give you clean smoke for your food. If you are going to use chunks for actual fuel and not just to generate the smoke then prepared to use a lot of wood chunks. I use charcoal briquettes as my heat source in my OKJ Highland offset. I then put wood chunks on top of the charcoal to burn as the smoke source for the flavor. It works very well in my situation. I'd also add that in my opinion it's not necessary for you to add full chimneys of lit charcoal. I find that before I fire up my smoker the most efficient method has been to put about 3/4 chimney of unlit charcoal in my firebox. Light a chimney with approximately the same amount of fuel in it. Add that to the firebox. Let the smoker come to temp with vent adjustment on the firebox. Put the meat into the cooking chamber and then add a dozen or so unlit briquettes when the temp drops to within 5 degrees of my acceptable low end temp. I find that this works similar to a standard minion method without the risk of the coals running away on me and getting the fire way too high. Just one method to consider as you find what works best for you. Enjoy that pork.

George

 

[mike243]

Don't wet the wood.add both wood for flavor & charcoal for heat,your just slowing down the smoke when you soak it,that style wont be fuel efficient no matter what you do imo

 

[viper12161]

Thanks for the tips!!!! I think next time I am going to look into the bigger pieces of wood. They had them, but I went with chunks because I wasn't sure if they would fit on my chamber, But after I got home and looked at it, I think they will work. That might help quite a bit. I also only started with one chimney of charcoal vs what George suggested so I started low to begin with. All lessons learned. We're up to 171 now...so patiently waiting lol