New Member from Colorado that Needs some help

[Frankluvribs]

Hello all !
I am very glad you all are out here, kind of feel lost at the moment hope you can help. For a little background. Moved out to rural Colorado from the Chicago area. Not too many good barbecue places out here, forced to try and make my own. Bought a Masterbuilt electric and a accessory side smoker for it. I am not too thrilled with the results, but I did create some great creosote. I was lucky enough to run up on an affordable used "New Braunfels" Texas style smoker and did some modifications on it . Used this smoker once and the results were not too bad but I need some experienced advice I think. I am going to try again tomorrow. Not to be pushy but if I could ask one question now, I use charcoal for the heat and hickory chunks for the smoke. I want to stay away from the creosote taste, Do I let the hickory fire completely burn down first or can I smoke with it and still on fire, or do I choke it off till it is only partially burning??? Still chasing the elusive thin blue. Many more questions coming later. Thanks for the help Frank

 

[Scott Eisenbraun]

From what I understand, it's important to get your temp to the 225 to 250 with the vents. Then the hickory chunks are added for smoke.

Hopefully, the boys that use this style smoker will advise further.

 

[gmc2003]

Hi and welcome aboard. I don't have a New Braunfels smoker, but it looks similar to my old char-grillar duo. What I wound up doing was laying a bed of coals accross the charcoal grate with my wood chunks buried in the coals at various distances. I would then lite a few coals and put them along the side of the firebox wall where the vent is. The charcoal would eventually burn it's way across the grate to the cooking chamber. For longer smokes I would have to tap down the ash and replenish the charcoals and wood when needed. You can also look into building a charcoal basket. It would have made my life a whole lot easier, but I was to lazy to build one at the time.

Chris

 

[SmokinLogs]

I don’t have a new braunsfel, but I do have plenty of experience on my char broil COS. My best experience is with making a charcoal basket out of some scrap expanded metal, loading it up with charcoal with wood chunks scattered throughout, and lighting 10-15 coals and letting the rest of the charcoal catch slowly. It helps to have a good air tight firebox and smoker otherwise you will use a lot of fuel. But using this method I get a good 3-4 hours of clean burning thin blue smoke. Hope this helps you out. Good luck with the smoker!

 

[tx pitmaster]

depending on what your cooking, hickory is a strong smoke. you may want to try pecan. one of my favorite woods when i had a box smoker.

ron-