Newbie with a few questions

[jmillz]

How much charcoal vs. wood should I be burning during a 8 - 10 hour smoke?

 

[bluewhisper]

Mostly charcoal, not too much wood, unless you're shooting for a very smoky flavor.

 

[jmillz]

Like specifically how often and how much are we adding wood chunks to the charcoal?

 

[bobank03]

Hey @JMILLZ

What sort of smoker you are using has a lot to do with the more correct answer. I have an ECB and I use the minion method in a charcoal pan. other things including air intake can cause you to burn more or less too. We are looking for Thin Blue Smoke and not billowing smoke so you don't want to overdue it with the smoke

 

[jmillz]

Chargriller smokin pro with quite a few mods - I've smoked on my Weber kettle style grill many times with great success but the smokes are a lot quicker with that being that the heat source is so close to whatever it is smoking. Being as though smoking on an offset smoker requires longer periods of smoking, I wasn't sure if it was normal to have to continue adding charcoal during the smoke. I assumed that once my temps started dropping to the 200 range, it was time to add more fuel.

 

[bobank03]

That sounds about right. I don't have any experience with the offset smokers, but I would probably rebuild before it got too low I'm sure some of the more experienced off set users can point you in the right direction. You may need to post your question in that section though?

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/f/108/charcoal-smokers

I like to keep the smoke going for at least two thirds of every cook I do. I just ease another chunk of wood into the pan if I need more or when I add charcoal I toss in a few more. 

A chunk of wood is about 3 inches long and about 2 inches wide. About the size of the small tomato juice cans. 

 

[jmillz]

Thanks for the advice, I DEFINITELY used too much wood on my first smoke this past weekend!