Better for long cooks in offset: lump or briquettes?

[Mark Adams]

This past weekend I fired up my ok joe offset for a brisket and turkey breast. I started with a chimney of royal oak lump and used splits to get a good bed going. Every 2.5 HRs or so I had to add more lump because my coal bed had dwindled down to almost nothing. Is this normal? I had the stack wide open as well as firebox door

 

[atomicsmoke]

I don't have experience with RF smokers but on my crappy vertical smoker i control the burn rate using the dampers. Not as precise as say on WSM, but i get things done.

Why keep the firebox door open and stack wide open?

 

[Mark Adams]

I keep the stack and door open to get a clean fire, too much white smoke with them closed as well as fire losing heat/going out

 

[ristau5741]

Lots of air makes fire burn fast.

 

[Mark Adams]

I didn’t even think of that Ristau, still a newbie here, haha. Would starting with more lump and running with door closed/damper open allow me to keep my temps up longer?

 

[dcecil]

I used to cook on an OK joe. When starting the initial fire I use coal and wood splits mixture. I surround the coal with wood and also lay some across the top. Kind of like building a log cabin over your coals. Leave everything open. Firebox door and cook chamber door. Once you have a really nice fire going and a bed of coals started I toss in another split and close all doors. Open damper on the fire box door wide open and start closing it down until you get close to the temp you want. From there you should be adding another split anywhere from every 30 to an hr depending on outside temp. Never let your coals die out in your firebox, When I notice a temp drop I will open fire box door and take a new split and move the coals around to stoke them and lay split right on top. If i notice the coals have almost burned up I will put two splits in to help build that back up. Again,The key is to not let your coals burn out , Do you have a thermometer besides the one on the grill. Cooking on a stick burner requires and additional therm inside the cook chamber. You find that there are different temps all over the inside of your cook chamber.

 

[Mark Adams]

That sounds like a good idea, I’ll try that next time I cook. I have 4 thermometers on the cook chamber, one in each of the holes that came with the cooker and a double probe wireless thermometer at grate level on each end so the temp never gets too low while I’m away from it.

 

[bluewhisper]

My offset always runs with the exhaust wide open, and normally runs with the firebox door closed and intake about 2/3 open, depending on conditions and fuel.

Good point about keeping a coal bed alive, else you have to start a fire all over.

 

[Smoke23]

Briquettes will burn longer than lump.

 

[Northshore Smoke]

When I used my Oklahoma Joe offset, the briquets were just for getting the fire going. After that I used either pecan or red oak splits. Once the wood was burning good, the doors were closed, the firebox vent was always wide open, and I controlled the temperature from the exhaust vent. It used a lot of wood. The Bandera, while still an offset, is much more efficient with the splits. It uses less than half the wood that the Texas style smoker used to do the same thing.