How to not pick up 'smoky' flavor

Unknown

Newby egger. Grilled steak Friday (great). Smoked salmon Saturday (excellent). Slow cooked a roast Sunday (pretty good-I left it in too long).
Now, I'm getting the appropriate smoky flavors for these items, but what if I want to use the egg as an oven, WITHOUT picking up smoky flavors. Possible??and how do I go about it?
Thanks in advance!
Joanne

The Naked Whiz

Joanne M,
Used lump has less smokiness to it than new lump. An established fire will smoke less than a fire that is still getting going. Cowboy lump will provide less smokey flavor than natural lumps in my experience. Also, if you do use old lump, make sure it doesn't have any drippings from previous cooks on it.[p]TNW

Unknown

Hey Joanne:[p]Clean out your firebox and just use some fresh lump. Now some residual smoke flavor might be there as it is inherent to the fuel we use. The only readily available pure charcoal that I have heard of that has absolutely no smoky flavor is the bamboo or coconut based extruded lump sold by K.omodo. There are some others, but good luck finding them.[p][p]

The Naked Whiz

Daddo (Larry Marino- Oviedo, FL),
The extruded coconut lump has more smoke flavor to it than oak lump as far as I can tell. I cooked two pieces of chicken, one over BGE lump, the other over the Kamado lump. I knew which was which, but my wife didn't. We both agreed the Kamado chicken had a stronger flavor.[p]TNW

tn slagamater

Joanne M, in addition to the comments below,some foods do not absorb much (if any) smoke.For example, bread does not absorb smoke like chicken does. You can also bake inside a pot or dutch oven in the Egg and if you leave the top on the dutch oven you will avoid a smoke taste.

AZ Geoff

Joanne M,
Although it is not rated too good on TNW lump tests, we use "Cowboy" brand lump if we don't want a smokey flavor. Seems to not give much smokey flavor at all!![p]AZ Geoff

Mike in MN

Joanne M,
I'd also make sure there was no residual smoking woods floating around in there. A lot of times there are leftover chunks or chips that will carry over into the next cook, also (as mentioned) leftover drippings will create smoke. [p]I believe used lump that is burning nicely produces less smoke flavor.[p]I have to be careful because my wife doesn't care for smokey flavors....and she lets me know whenever it has too much![p]Mike in MN

Unknown

Hey Whiz:[p]Well, that just goes to show that you can’t believe what you read. I picked up that tidbit from comments on other ceramic forums. I was planning on sharing part of a pallet of that stuff with a few others in the Orlando area. I grill a lot of fish and vegetables and I wanted a smoke flavor free lump specifically for that purpose. I like to smoke the lighter fleshed fish with a touch of Alder or Mulberry.[p]Thanks for that comment as you have no doubt saved me from being very annoyed.[p][p]

TRex

<p />Joanne M,[p]The others below give good tips to avoid smokiness - used lump that is glowing will produce very little smoke. Also, if you shut your bottom vent down as much as possible and control the temp mostly with your chimney, any smoke that is produced will spend less time circulating in the dome before exiting out the top. That's how I cooked the pumpkin bread you see above - I kept the daisy wheel almost fully open so that the smoke didn't spend a lot of time circulating in the dome, but would instead go right out the chimney. Incidentally, I used fresh BGE lump for this cook, and the bread still had no smokey taste at all.[p]Good luck,[p]TRex