Smoking question

Yessir, give it a few minutes or so...otherwise the meat gets a bitter taste to it, particularly on shorter cooks. For the low-and-slows, I'll let the chunk of smoking wood burn for a bit, then I'll add the food.

Same thing with fresh lump--you've gotta let the initial heavy smoke clear before putting your food on.

You want to either see a faint blue colored smoke, or no visable smoke at all. That could take 5 minutes or, with some of the cheeper brands of lump, or if it has been stored in a damp place, much longer.

I use both--I still have some leftover from the pre-egg days, and they still work well, especially the Jack Daniels I just buy chunks nowadays, though and split them up if I'm doing low and slow to mix them in with the lump on those cooks when I want the smoke going the entire cook. Just pour in some lump, add some chips or a chunk, add more lump then a little more smoking wood, etc. It'll be something like a multi-layer lump/wood setup. Just don't put too much smoking wood

EDIT: Sorry, this didn't post in the correct position, but I was responding back to your question of chips vs. chunks.

Because smoldering wood gives off a hodge-podge of resins, tars and volatile chemicals; many of which are toxic. Thick white or yellow smoke indicates the fire is not yet established. When the smoke thins out and turns pale blue, that indicates that the volatile chemicals are being burned off in the fire and not being deposited on your food.

yes sir. all of these are blowin sweet blue.

also, you don't need to soak the chips or chunks to keep them from flaming in an egg. they might flame when the dome is open, but will quickly go out when you close the dome...

i have another large and a large down at a friend's restaurant that he pays me to cook on

I prefer chunks, myself. They smoke more gradually and for a longer time.

Well, I'm the first to admit tht the ~thirdeye~ logic is...well just that, ~thirdeye~ logic. I did learn to cook on a stick burning pit, but I don't think you will buy that as a stand-alone answer. The good thing is, using wood as a primary fuel does make you have respect for a proper fire and also forces you to learn fire control. Okay enough of that, back to your questions....

Granted, now we are talking about a fire using lump charcoal and some wood for flavor. You know that black, acrid, creosote layer that builds up on the inside of your cooker? I think the same thing is deposited on your meat if it goes into the pit too soon. Getting back to the specifics of wood, initially the first things to burn off would be moisture and the volatiles which include carbon monoxide, methanes, VOC's followed by a bunch of other stuff. Now if one were to put chunks on top of the pile of coals, you would get a lot of these things burning off at once, say in the first 45 minutes.

Putting some chips or splits into the lump, so that the fire reaches it in a delayed fashion, reduces the amounts (in a given period of time) of the volatiles that are coming off the wood.

Adding logs to a stick burner is tricky (a pre-burn pit is a better idea) but the venting in them is way different than we experience in an upright ceramic cooker. A sidewinder type of pit will have the opening of the stack (or a series of baffle or tuning plates) strategically located to direct the flow of heat and the smoke. It flows across the meat instead of the meat always being in the path of the smoke like in an Egg. When adding logs during the cook, you adjust your vents to allow the harsh smoke to pass out of the pit quickly, then re adjust to take advantage of the good smoke later.

A great snip from an article that Dave Lineback wrote follows.....he gets into some of the specifics that are above my reasoning.

Wood does not burn directly. Rather, when heat is applied it first undergoes a process of thermal degradation called pyrolysis in which the wood breaks down into a mixture of volatiles and solid carbonaceous char. The cellulose and hemicellulose form mainly volatiles while the lignin mainly forms the char. Exactly what products are formed by each depends upon the temperature, heating rate, particle size, and any catalysts that might be present.

The solid char remains in place. What goes up with the volatiles are a gas fraction (carbon monoxide and dioxide, some hydrocarbons, and elemental hydrogen), a condensed fraction (water, aldehydes, acids, ketones, and alcohols), and -- here we go! -- a tar fraction (sugar residues from the breakdown of cellulose, furan derivatives, phenolic compounds, and -- pay attention here -- airborne particles of tar and charred material which form the smoke.

If oxygen is present and the temperature is sufficiently high, burning of the volatiles occurs. When temperatures are too low or when there is insufficient oxygen for complete combustion of the volatiles, smoldering occurs. This is characterized by smoking, the emission of unoxidized pyrolysis products. (This is the awful tasting stuff, creosote, that will give barbecue a bitter taste.) If the temperature is high enough and sufficient oxygen is present, then flaming combustion occurs with less smoking and more complete oxidation of the pyrolysis products. Further pyrolysis of volatiles during flaming combustion may cause char particles (soot) to form.

The remaining lignin char burns in the presence of oxygen in glowing combustion. These are my beloved coals that yield the thin blue smoke that makes great barbecue! And, that's why it is so important to preburn the wood to coals."

Dave Lineback

You can just see the blue smoke coming off the small offset on the left.

Further reading:
Fire Management For Offset Firebox Smokers:
Airflow & Smoke discussion on The Smoke Ring.

Yeah, that was pretty windy. You know what? I left out the most important thing.....No matter what anyone says, figuring out the combination of seasoning, heat, time and smoke flavor that suits you is what makes barbecue so wonderful.

Until next time,