More than 6 oz - what happens?

gmannel

New member
Out of curiosity, has anybody tried, just as an experiment, filling the smoke box front to back w/ the little wood blocks? 3 blocks, 6 oz, look awful puny in that #3 box. I of course am coming from a stick burner where I feed many pounds of oak logs over an 16-20 hr brisket smoke and they were never "over smoked". I think that's why the Bradley and Masterbuilt crowd found the 10-12 hr smoke production from the AMNPS to be a nice upgrade. I am new to this #3 and it has produced some great Q, just makes me nervous when the 3-6 oz of wood is smoked and gone in the 1st 2 hours of a 12-20 hr cook time when I'm used to seeing a nice plume the whole time from my oak logs on my stick burner.
 
George, if you use more than 6 oz., all life will cease to exist, and every molecule in your body will explode at the speed of light.  Oh, wait a minute, that's what happens if you cross the streams in Ghostbusters! ;) 

It's really just a guidline.  If you like a really strong smoke flavor, use more.  I like meat pretty smokey, and find 6 oz. is plenty.  One of the problems you get, with too much, is that it over-smokes the food, since it really doesn't absorb smoke at around 140°, so it's just building creosote on the surface.

 
I'm in the process of trying to ruin a piece of meat right now.  I'm using 8 - 10 oz. on a picnic roast, skin on.  I've used 6 oz. a number of times and didn't think I was anywhere near, "too smoky".  This current attempt is to push the envelope and see what happens. 
 
May take more than that for a skin-on picnic, Dave! :(  Tough smoke there, at least to get good smoke penetration.
 
A question - I've been reading that meat will only absorb the smoke flavoring until the internal temperature reaches 140 degrees and if that's true, what difference does the addition of additional wood make other than there's more smoke for a longer period of time.  I love pulled pork but with 6 oz of wood there's not a lot of "smoky" taste as far as I'm concerned...I've been experimenting with almost double that amount and prefer the taste of the meat now to before.
 
Gene, too much smoke for too long of a time changes from smoke absorption to smoke/creosote outer build up which is bitter and nasty. 
 
Running a stick burner is a complete different animal. In a stick burner you are "hopefully" burning a small clean burning fire. You don't want your exhaust stack to be puffing out smoke like a locomotive.

In an Electric Smoker you are basically smoldering wood in an oxygen starved environment. These units are insulated and being air tight a little wood goes a long long ways.

The food from the Smokin -It is "dayum" good but nothing close to the stick burners flavor profile. Two completely different ways to get great Q...one is labor intensive and one is as easy as you could ask for.............
 
damnfingers said:
A question - I've been reading that meat will only absorb the smoke flavoring until the internal temperature reaches 140 degrees and if that's true, what difference does the addition of additional wood make other than there's more smoke for a longer period of time.  I love pulled pork but with 6 oz of wood there's not a lot of "smoky" taste as far as I'm concerned...I've been experimenting with almost double that amount and prefer the taste of the meat now to before.

Gene, what kind of wood are you using, and what's the source?  If the wood is too dry, you could be burning up your wood before the meat is through absorbing it - seen it, and done it.  A good wood, like the stuff from smokinlicious.com, will produce smoke much longer than some of the others.  You also may be using too mild of a wood for your taste; wood smoke flavor is no different from any other spice, and the flavor is personal preference.
 
Tony - Bought mine from Smokinlicious after seeing rave review for it on line - Apple, Hickory and Maple.  I'm much happier with it than I was using what I was getting from Home Depot, Lowes, etc., but still not getting a truly deep smoky flavor.  Don't get me wrong, the meat is delicious and everyone that tastes it likes it, I'm just used to BBQ I used to get in North Carolina and haven't managed to duplicate that yet.  I think what smokeasaurus says is true - you just can't duplicate the taste of a stick burner.
 
damnfingers said:
Tony - Bought mine from Smokinlicious after seeing rave review for it on line - Apple, Hickory and Maple.  I'm much happier with it than I was using what I was getting from Home Depot, Lowes, etc., but still not getting a truly deep smoky flavor.  Don't get me wrong, the meat is delicious and everyone that tastes it likes it, I'm just used to BBQ I used to get in North Carolina and haven't managed to duplicate that yet.  I think what smokeasaurus says is true - you just can't duplicate the taste of a stick burner.

The taste off of a stick burner is second to none..........however, you need the time and desire to start and manage a clean burning fire for 12-18 hours. I use my Smokin-it way more than I use my off-set. I know the flavor profile I am gonna get and the Smokin-It delivers time and time again. When the weather is nice, if I have time, if I am feeling rested.....I start splitting logs for the off-set.....if not (which is 90%) of the time, the Smokin-It does the heavy lifting around my place  8)
 
Are you getting the "not smoky enough" taste with straight hickory?  The apple and maple are pretty mild, and I believe most of the Carolinas favor hickory, right?
 
gmannel said:
Out of curiosity, has anybody tried, just as an experiment, filling the smoke box front to back w/ the little wood blocks? 3 blocks, 6 oz, look awful puny in that #3 box. I of course am coming from a stick burner where I feed many pounds of oak logs over an 16-20 hr brisket smoke and they were never "over smoked". I think that's why the Bradley and Masterbuilt crowd found the 10-12 hr smoke production from the AMNPS to be a nice upgrade. I am new to this #3 and it has produced some great Q, just makes me nervous when the 3-6 oz of wood is smoked and gone in the 1st 2 hours of a 12-20 hr cook time when I'm used to seeing a nice plume the whole time from my oak logs on my stick burner.

Hey George, On the 3lb of bacon that I smoked today. I used 3 oz of hickory chips and a 2 oz block of maple wood. Let me tell you it was plenty smoky. This was in my #3 SI. I would think if you filled the smoke box full you would have a smoked piece of meat that you could not eat. Remember that after an Internal Temp. of 140 meat stops absorbing smoke.
 
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