Finally after a couple of months of "practice", I can say I have now been witness to "Perfect Smoke".
As some of you know, when I first started in this forum, I was in the process of building a wood fired smoker.(see pics from previous posts).
A couple of months ago, my work was complete and since then I have been firing up the old boy every chance I get.
Two weekends ago, I cooked for the First Annual Ireland Ohio Smoked Meat Jubilee. A small get together of 75 or so. The food was to be ready at about 2pm, so the smoker "Brutus" was fired up at about 9pm. The Pork Butts and the brisket were going to need an overnight, so the butts went in about midnight and the briskets soon after.
A buddy and I were manning the smoker overnight. About 2:30am, we decided that everything was running smooth enough to take a little nap.
Setting the alarm for 4:30, we both got a little shut-eye.
The alarm rudely awakened me right at 4:30 as I requested..I put on my shoes and a light jacket and headed outside to check on the smoker.
When I first stepped outside, I almost freaked!! From a distance of about 50 yards, it looked like the smoker had gone out. Even on a crisp morning, I could see absolutely nothing coming from the stacks!!
We had a light tree pointed at Brutus and as I got close enough to see the temperature gauges, I could see that they were pegged right on 220 degrees. I opened the firebox and saw the most beautiful red glowing embers filled the entire box. What I was looking at was not a smoker that had gone out, but a smoker cooking with the absolute perfect heat source.
When I shined a flashlight right at the top of the stack, I could see just the smallest wisp of color to the smoke, but it was almost perfectly clear.
I could only sit there and look at it for quite some time.
I've seen clear smoke come out of my old offset smoker several times when cooking with lump, but never when cooking with straight wood.
Anyways, to make a long story short(er), the Festival was a huge success, later that morning, I added 6 slabs of ribs, 10 chickens, a couple dozen ABTs and two meatloaves...all were very well received...nothong was left-over (always the sign of a good smoke).
Just thought I would share that with all of you...that the "thin blue smoke" is not only legend, but can be obtained no matter what the heat source and is absolutely the key to top notch Q!!
-Rock-
As some of you know, when I first started in this forum, I was in the process of building a wood fired smoker.(see pics from previous posts).
A couple of months ago, my work was complete and since then I have been firing up the old boy every chance I get.
Two weekends ago, I cooked for the First Annual Ireland Ohio Smoked Meat Jubilee. A small get together of 75 or so. The food was to be ready at about 2pm, so the smoker "Brutus" was fired up at about 9pm. The Pork Butts and the brisket were going to need an overnight, so the butts went in about midnight and the briskets soon after.
A buddy and I were manning the smoker overnight. About 2:30am, we decided that everything was running smooth enough to take a little nap.
Setting the alarm for 4:30, we both got a little shut-eye.
The alarm rudely awakened me right at 4:30 as I requested..I put on my shoes and a light jacket and headed outside to check on the smoker.
When I first stepped outside, I almost freaked!! From a distance of about 50 yards, it looked like the smoker had gone out. Even on a crisp morning, I could see absolutely nothing coming from the stacks!!
We had a light tree pointed at Brutus and as I got close enough to see the temperature gauges, I could see that they were pegged right on 220 degrees. I opened the firebox and saw the most beautiful red glowing embers filled the entire box. What I was looking at was not a smoker that had gone out, but a smoker cooking with the absolute perfect heat source.
When I shined a flashlight right at the top of the stack, I could see just the smallest wisp of color to the smoke, but it was almost perfectly clear.
I could only sit there and look at it for quite some time.
I've seen clear smoke come out of my old offset smoker several times when cooking with lump, but never when cooking with straight wood.
Anyways, to make a long story short(er), the Festival was a huge success, later that morning, I added 6 slabs of ribs, 10 chickens, a couple dozen ABTs and two meatloaves...all were very well received...nothong was left-over (always the sign of a good smoke).
Just thought I would share that with all of you...that the "thin blue smoke" is not only legend, but can be obtained no matter what the heat source and is absolutely the key to top notch Q!!
-Rock-
