Big wave from England

[Ali-UK]

Hello from England!

I've been going to smoking events for a while and decided to get involved and try my hand. The wife got me an OKJ Highlander offset. After a few burns i'm still struggling to achieve the desired TBS. Frustrating for me, and my neighbours surely hate me by now. I can get the temps to 230-255 after an hour or so by using a coal bed and adding chunks/small logs but end up with huge clouds of white smoke. However i'll keep trying and hopefully soon we'll get it right

 

[gmc2003]

Welcome to the site, happy to have ya join up. There are plenty of OKJ users on board that will be willing to help you out.

Chris

 

[weedeater]

Welcome to SMF from NW Georgia! You have come to a happy place!
As Chris said, lots of OKJ users here with lots of info to share.

Weedeater

 

[HalfSmoked]

Welcome from the other side of the big ditch. Glad to have you on board there will guys stepping in to help you just hang on.

Warren

 

[wade]

Hi Ali and welcome to the forum. There are a few of us here from the UK and there is a whole lot of experience to hand from our US colleagues too. Where in the UK are you? I am in Kent.

TBS is something that most people strive for but most fail to achieve. Thin Blue Smoke is best achieved by using either good quality briquettes and/or restaurant grade charcoal. Whenever you use natural wood (logs or chunks) you are going to get white smoke as the wood initially burns and the amount will decrease as the burning wood first burns away its bark and resins and then starts to burn more of the wood carbon. It is always a balance as you are adding more fuel to maintain the cooking temperature and you will get periods straight after where you have more white smoke. This is unavoidable.
What you need to do is to try to make your Highland as heat efficient as possible to minimise the amount of fuel that you use. The first steps to take are to minimise air leaks around the lid of the cooking chamber and firebox. This is easily done by applying some self adhesive stove tape (from somewhere like Vitcas) around the seals. It is also a good idea with these smaller offset smoker units to maintain the neutral heat using good quality briquettes (e.g. Heat Beads or Weber Briquettes) and then to periodically place small chunks of your favourite flavouring wood on top for the smoke flavour.

 

[Ali-UK]

Thanks all,

Wade I’m in a small town called Nuneaton just outside Coventry.

I’ve added the tape around the doors and used heat proof sealant around the breaks joins. From reading through a few of the threads and a bit of reflection I need to make sure that I don’t let the ash choke the fire. Fingers crossed I’ll get outside Sunday for a burn and try some ribs again. There’s a garden centre near me that still has Weber briquettes in so ill grab some of those and was going to try the minion method burning from the outside inwards, so if and when I need to refill I can clear the ash and burn outwards. I’ve been ordering from smokewoodshack.com for chunks.

Thanks again for the welcome and the advice

 

[TomKnollRFV]

Welcome Aboard from WI USA! I hope to see some of your stuff, especially doing riffs on things popular in the old country :)

 

[wade]

The Minion method is good however to make the Minion most effective in an offset smoker it is good to use a separate fire basket into the firebox to contain the coals. These should be raised up off the bottom of the fire box to allow the ash to drop underneath. Here are some examples of varying complexity.