I totally agree with you Winz that it is a personal preference.
For me, I don't really need or want smoke for 11 hours on most of my smokes.
Smoke can only be absorbed until the internal temp of the meat hits about 140 degrees. After this point the smoke tends to build up on the meat and can become bitter.
I know what you are talking about with the wood burning up right away, but we on the
www.smokinitforums.com have found some ways to eliminate or reduce this. There are a couple of methods:
1. Ramp up your temp instead of going full blast from the beginning. This is my preference. What I do is start my smoke with cold meat in a cold smoker (to get the most amount of smoke before the IT hits 140) at 140 degrees. Then, after 45 minutes, I turn the heat up to 225 or whatever smoking temp I am going to use. What this does is get the wood smoldering and before it combusts shuts off the heating element and lets the wood smolder instead of catch fire. Then when the element hits it again, it is less likely to combust.
2. Wrap the bottom half of your wood chunks in foil and run at 225 or your temp of choice. This method works similar to method one in that it helps prevent the wood from combusting.
These options will prevent the combustion of your wood and short smoke times. Using method one with chunks, I easily get smoke for 5-6 hours which is plenty of smoke for me.
I know the
A-MAZE-N is really popular here and I like it too (I have two of them), and many of you are getting great results from using them with all of your smokes. I am certainly not saying that this method is wrong by any means, because results are all that matters. I have just found that I prefer to only use them for my cold smokes for the reasons I have listed here.
Happy smoking to all no matter how you apply your smoke. :)
