Smoke ring

[cajunsmoker]

I may be off thread here, but when adding more coals to a smoker do most of you add lit charcoal or unlit charcoal?

I alway go with the lit coals because I don't want all the smoke that the briquettes give off when they are lighting up on my meat. However, I start out with a "Minion Method" coal pan sooo, maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture here. (that's not too unusual

)

 

[tonto1117]

Actually Rodger your very clever and a bit uncanny, I just walked through the door and Guess what I bought today.......a chimney, I'm not sure whether you are referring to just adding a briquet or two to the smoke box, but thought maybe that could have been part of my problem last weekend, so I bought a chimney and am going to put about two briquet's in it along with a couple chunks of wood and get it going before I dump it into the smoke box next time.....I'll see what happpens.

 

[teacup13]

i am not an expert on the technical parts of smoking by any means - i just go by what i have watched and experimented with over the years...

anyways... wouldnt alot of the smoke ring be dependant on the wood that you are using? hickory,mesquite give a denser smoke - more oily wood... fruit woods more of a light wood etc etc

 

[tonto1117]

This articule is what I have been using in my quest for a good smoke ring.

http://www.geocities.com/senortoad/S...bequeMeats.htm

 

[goat]

Something along that line of thought worked out real nice for me last week. All that remains is to see if I can duplicate the same results. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[reflect]

When I use my horizontal offset ECB, yes always.

However this is a propane one. JMinion was talking about only throwing in a chunk or two to help enhance the smoke ring. Being a new thing to me I wanted to clarify as I normally would never throw a lump in with the wood on a propane smoker.

Teacup, yes you are sort of right. It turns out that the charcoal adds to the NO2 which creates the smoke ring or at least enhances it. As I stated in the opening post with my offset ECB I always got a nice/phat smoke ring. With the propane smoker I am just not getting the same results. I do get a nice smokey flavor in the meat, just a REALLY weak looking smoke ring. On another board someone offered this link, which is/was a good read...

http://www.geocities.com/senortoad/S...bequeMeats.htm

So the more NO2 introduced the more pronounced the smoke ring will be (to an extent of course). Since charcoal produces this at a higher rate it seems to make sense. That and Jim Minoion seems to be very knowledgeable. I have not tried this yet but plan on doing so on my next smoke.

I am FAR from being an expert myself, just learning as I go, it's fun.

Take care,

Brian

 

[tonto1117]

I don't know anything about another board, but I posted this exact link two posts ago.

 

[reflect]

Whoops, sorry. I have the same thread running on "another board" for more thoughts. Got the two confused. I thought it was a great link, hence why I dropped it. It really explains a lot of the "technical" stuff IMHO.

Take care,

Brian

 

[reflect]

Actually I was was correct, too confusing, thought I was going insane :). Someone dropped it on the "other board" here...

http://thesmokering.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7278

Sorry to drop a link to another board, hope it is OK. If not I will happily edit this out of my post.

Take care,

Brian

 

[tonto1117]

That's cool Reflect, just didn't know if you saw the post.

 

[cajun_1]

Well, there really wasn't a clear answer as to the charcoal being lite or not lite when added to the wood chips. This morning, I fired up the fridge smoker, added my wood chips with 2 briquets of Kingsford " unlite". After an hour, I checked to see if the briquets were burning. The wood chips were smokin' but the briquetes were doing nothing. So, I would say that the briquetes need to be lite when adding to the wood chips.
Just my 2 cents.

 

[tonto1117]

Thanks Cajun, that's what I found last Saturday(and therefore not really excited about the smoke ring I got) and so I bought a chimney starter this week.

 

[cajun_1]

I need to revise my last post: After an hour and ahalf, I found the briquet was actually starting to burn. That being said, I feel that amount of time would not help in any way. So will try with lit briquets on my next smoke.