Wanted to do a quick update on my experiences so far with my “new to me” original Oklahoma Joe 16” offset. I have burned 3 fires in her to date. A little detail on each below…
The first burn was supposed to be a dry run. After about 2 hours over 500 degrees (trying to clean her out a bit) I closed down the dampers and brought her back below 300. Playing with dampers and wood, I held her between about 225-300 for another couple hours. After that, I couldn’t stand it – ran to the store for some sausages… I placed the sausage on the far end from the fire box to start, and finished close to the fire to crisp them up a bit. Conclusion – they spent too much time away from the fire and by the time I pulled them, slightly dry, but flavorful with a good smoke flavor.
Second burn – gave her plenty of preheat time burning a good fire and getting a good bed of coals before adding some chicken wings. The plan was to cook them away from the fire box for about an hour and then crisp them directly over the coals in the fire box. However I got scared of the grate over the coals and cooked them in the smoker section close to the fire box. End result, great flavor but I should have gone to the coals directly – the skin was still a little rubbery…
Yesterday’s burn – decided it was time to try some “real meat” – even though I was pressed for time (my daughter’s 11[sup]th[/sup] birthday slumber party happened last night), I prepped 3 racks of babyback’s and got them ready for the smoker. In the mean time I was cooking my daughter’s requested meal of country style steak in the kitchen… Anyway, (and yes, more detail in this cook than others) I started my fire using 6 mini-splits – mini-splits to me are, take a piece of regular firewood and split into 3 pieces. So I started with 6 pieces of wood, equal to 2 regular pieces of firewood. This is mixed hardwood – white oak, red oak and some cherry best I can tell. Since my daughter’s friends were over and they were all at the community pool (and I had to be there to help watch them), I was not baby-sitting this cook – not even close. After the fire/coals were going, I added a split and the ribs and went to the pool – 1hr15min later I came home to check on it – coal pile was small, heat was 200 – added 2 new splits. Same thing a couple times over – by the end, added 3 splits trying to keep the coals/temp up.
Long story short (not by the length of this post) – the ribs had too much of a campfire flavor. I’m guessing that I should have been adding 1 split every 30-min to 45-min – not every 1 hour and 15 min. That should have resulted in a cleaner burn and less campfire flavor. But please chime in and tell me otherwise if necessary. I’m loving the smoker so far and look forward to figuring this old girl out!
Oh yeah - temp across the smoke box was pretty varied in the first 2 cooks so I made a "diffuser" out of an old sheet pan. This was nothing more than me seeing a few pictures of diffusers and grabbing the drill and some different size bits and making one off the cuff. But it did mellow the temp variation across the grate. Still about 40 degrees from firebox to chimney but much better than it was. I will refine it over the next few cooks.
A couple pics of the above cooks added below.
The first burn was supposed to be a dry run. After about 2 hours over 500 degrees (trying to clean her out a bit) I closed down the dampers and brought her back below 300. Playing with dampers and wood, I held her between about 225-300 for another couple hours. After that, I couldn’t stand it – ran to the store for some sausages… I placed the sausage on the far end from the fire box to start, and finished close to the fire to crisp them up a bit. Conclusion – they spent too much time away from the fire and by the time I pulled them, slightly dry, but flavorful with a good smoke flavor.
Second burn – gave her plenty of preheat time burning a good fire and getting a good bed of coals before adding some chicken wings. The plan was to cook them away from the fire box for about an hour and then crisp them directly over the coals in the fire box. However I got scared of the grate over the coals and cooked them in the smoker section close to the fire box. End result, great flavor but I should have gone to the coals directly – the skin was still a little rubbery…
Yesterday’s burn – decided it was time to try some “real meat” – even though I was pressed for time (my daughter’s 11[sup]th[/sup] birthday slumber party happened last night), I prepped 3 racks of babyback’s and got them ready for the smoker. In the mean time I was cooking my daughter’s requested meal of country style steak in the kitchen… Anyway, (and yes, more detail in this cook than others) I started my fire using 6 mini-splits – mini-splits to me are, take a piece of regular firewood and split into 3 pieces. So I started with 6 pieces of wood, equal to 2 regular pieces of firewood. This is mixed hardwood – white oak, red oak and some cherry best I can tell. Since my daughter’s friends were over and they were all at the community pool (and I had to be there to help watch them), I was not baby-sitting this cook – not even close. After the fire/coals were going, I added a split and the ribs and went to the pool – 1hr15min later I came home to check on it – coal pile was small, heat was 200 – added 2 new splits. Same thing a couple times over – by the end, added 3 splits trying to keep the coals/temp up.
Long story short (not by the length of this post) – the ribs had too much of a campfire flavor. I’m guessing that I should have been adding 1 split every 30-min to 45-min – not every 1 hour and 15 min. That should have resulted in a cleaner burn and less campfire flavor. But please chime in and tell me otherwise if necessary. I’m loving the smoker so far and look forward to figuring this old girl out!
Oh yeah - temp across the smoke box was pretty varied in the first 2 cooks so I made a "diffuser" out of an old sheet pan. This was nothing more than me seeing a few pictures of diffusers and grabbing the drill and some different size bits and making one off the cuff. But it did mellow the temp variation across the grate. Still about 40 degrees from firebox to chimney but much better than it was. I will refine it over the next few cooks.
A couple pics of the above cooks added below.
