When to Give a BB rib fire the wood??!!

Another vote for mixing the wood in the lump load.  Get everything in order, then when the smoke is good load 'er up and go.

So here's an honest question: if you mix lumps/chips in the lump won't you have newly ignited wood throughout the cook? Doesn't that means you'll have 'bad smoke' contribution throughout the cook?

I pretty much always put my lump on right away when I get the fire going and allow all the smoke and temps to stabilize/clear before putting the meat on. Pretty much everything I've read suggests you're going to get maxomum smoke flavor within the first 1.5 hrs of the cook, so why expose well flavored meat to new, chemically, sooty smoke from a newly ignited wood chunk 3 hours into a cook?

Not saying my strategy is 'right' or 'better', just curious what the various thoughts are.

Cheers all -
B_B

This was posted on a different discussion. I will try to link it to thus discussion.

VOCs are 'burned off' by fire sure, but their volatility (ability to vaporize, be carried away by air, etc.) is increased by the heat.

if you have brand new lump, it will have these VOCs.  yesterday's lump will have much less (or none) whether it actually burnt or not, because it will have been in a hot environment and vaporized, then been carried out the top vent.

as far as adding WOOD goes, chunks or chips, and their VOCs... well, it's a little different.  it's a smoldering fire, and you have a lot going on.  sure, there are VOCs in the smoke from the wood, but it isn't like burning brand new charcoal, which has a lot more VOCs entrained in it from the manufacturing process where it smoldered in the retort for hours on end, bathing in its own smoke (which is filled with a ton of noxious stuff).

wood has a lot of other pleasing stuff in the smoke too, which probably exists in greater amount than the VOCs, and helps mask it.

long story short, VOCs in new charcoal are horrible.  wait til it burns off. in your wood chunks or chips, andin older used charcoal (leftover), the VOCs are a virtual non-issue, but still present in some amount sure.

(for anyone wondering if this is some nefarious novelty account, or if i'm pretending to be anyone.... it's not, and i'm not. -stike)

Maybe he forgot about his previous thread and all the time others took to give well thought out answers........

does the smoke taste good, but there's just too much? i.e. too strong?

or does it taste like it's BAD smoke?

if the first, then you are using too much wood.

if the second, then the fire has not burned cleanly.

smell the smoke before you put the food on

YYZegger said:

I usually mix the chunks throughout the lump, but my last low and slow was odd because I only started the fire in the middle of the pile to keep it low and slow, but to my surprise the next day, it all burned straight down leaving unburnt lump around the fire, kinda like a donut.  Which is why my the pork shoulder wasn't very smoky because it only burned what was in the middle of the Egg, and left a lot of unburnt chunks??  Anyone else experience this?

I think that is the way the fire in an egg normally burns, if you where to get all the coals burning you would have a 700˚ cook not to low and slow

Gerhard

I only use maybe two chunks of whatever wood I am using .Total amount is about two fist size or less at the most . Got to make sure there is no billowing white or gray smoke and then food goes on . Too much smoke = bad flavor (creosote taste) in my book . For quick cooks have been soaking chips and lightly spreading them across top of fire after charcoal get's going .Again I wait for heavy smoke to go away . If a chunk is putting out too much smoke when I am putting on food I will move it away from hot coals to the side and let it smolder real slow .

I've been pondering this question a lot lately.  Reading only has me confused so I've been trying different things....

People with off set stick burners put fresh wood in their fire box all throughout a cook and don't get creosote.  Why?  From what I've read, the creosote is from wood burning w/o enough oxygen.  In an off set stick cooker there is a large amount of flowing oxygen.

So what about the egg?  Egg's supposedly are known for very low air flow during a slow and low cook compared to other BBQ methods.  This had me in the boat of getting my lump to temp, then adding chunks and waiting for the blue smoke.  IMO this took way too long and I wasn't pleased with the amount of smoke flavor achieved.

Last week I smoked some ribs and a brisket.  I brought the lump to temp and threw on 2-3 chunks (total) of hickory and apple.  I only waited about 5-10 minutes and put the meat on.  Sure there was still some white smoke, but the meat tasted great and had the smokey flavor I was looking for.

The only time I hated what I cooked was when I put the meat on before the lump hand burned clean.

What does all this mean?  I have no idea.  The more I read and see on TV (Cooking with Franklin) the more confused I get.  I think all we can do is go with trial and error.  With some sense of knowledge of cause and effect we can make better informed decisions with every cook to get the flavor profile we're looking for.

I'm sure this helps no one, but I thought I'd share my experience.

Theophan said:

I used to mix it in the lump, but the last few times I've lit the fire without wood or plate setter, and only when the temp was stabilized I added wood chunks radially around the fire, put in the plate setter, put on the meat, and for me, at least, I had better luck that way getting nice blue smoke throughout most of the cook.  For now, at least, that's what I'm going to keep doing for low and slow.

My experience is similar.  Low and slow has a small fire will not burn through all my charcoal, so if I mix throughout I end up with unburned or lightly burned chunks.  I tend to put the wood more towards the center and back where the fire burns when the meat is cold and more likely to absorb smoke. Since the fire is small, it's not hard to place the chunks in a warm egg.   I also put one piece directly on the fire.