Not brown enough?

[Benxbec]

Hello, a little background first. I had an electric 30in  masterbuilt for a few years and loved it til the element kept going out and decided to pop on a #1. Maybe I am doing something wrong, hope that I am, because I am really disappointed in that everything I cook in the #1 has almost no browning  to it, in the MB my chickens came out very brown and had a better taste. Also the cooking time is much faster in the #1 even though I have the temp set to 225, same as what I cooked in the MB. Please help.

Thanks, Ben.                                                                                                                                             

 

[DivotMaker]

Hi Ben, sorry to hear you're having some trouble!  I have a #1, and have never had a problem developing good bark on my cooks. 

In order to help you, we need some more details about your smokes that haven't turned out well. 

1.  What kind of meat did you smoke?
2.  How did you prepare it?
3.  Did you start with a cold smoker and cold meat, or did you "preheat" the smoker?
4.  What kind of, and how much, wood did you use?
5.  Ambient temp when smoking?
6.  Did you open the door during smoking?
7.  Did you open the door, and wrap the meat in foil while cooking?

If you give us a walk-thru of each smoke, we can probably figure out what the problem is.  Many of us have lots of trial-and-error experience with our smokers, and probably know what's happening.

I look forward to hearing more details!

 

[Benxbec]

Thanks DivotMaker, I'll try and answer each one as best I can.

#1. Mostly whole chickens.

#2. I prepare them by putting a liberal amount of Tony Chachare's, I'm a cajun  , inside and out.

#3. Cold smoker and cold meat as per the instructions that came with the #1. The MB called for a preheated smoker, hmmmmm?

#4. I like to use apple and would use a piece of wood about 1 in square and about 4 inches long and I'll split that into 6-8 pieces.

#5. 60-80 degrees

#6. no

#7. no

 

[Benxbec]

Another thing I have noticed after reading the FAQ section is that it said a chicken would take 4-6 hours. I can set my #1 to 225 and the chicken will be to 165 degrees in roughly 2 hours. Like I said much faster than my old MB?

 

[DivotMaker]

Do you have a thermometer, like the Maverick ET-732, that has a probe for the smoke box and the meat?  You may want to see what you're smoker is reading while cooking.  2 hours is pretty fast, unless the temp is a lot higher than it should be.  One other thing - I would recommend weighing your wood.  2-2 1/2 oz should be plenty for a chicken.

Here's a 4 3/4 lb bird I recently did:

http://smokinitforums.com/index.php?topic=1054.0

As you can see, it went 3 1/2 hours, and looks good.  How big were the birds you smoked?

 

[Benxbec]

Hey DivotMaker, yes I have that same thermometer and the temp seems to be close to but maybe a little over what I set the temp to. If I set it to 225 it will get to close to 250 before the thermostat will cut it off and then drop down to a little over 200 before kicking on. But usually the chicken is done just about the same time the thermostat has a chance to cut off. I really don't know the weight of the chickens I have smoked in it, I just get my wife to pick some up but it is a normal size. And looking at your pics I can tell you that these I have been doing or not near as brown as yours came out. I will get one today and tell you the weight and I will pay close attention to exactly how long it takes and report back. I believe I still have a few of the sample wood that came with it, how much does one of those pieces weigh?

Thanks, Ben.

 

[DivotMaker]

Sounds good, Ben.  I weighed one of the dowels one time, and came up with .64 oz per inch.  So, a piece about 2 2 1/2 " is plenty for a chicken.

 

[Benxbec]

I was wondering if I should maybe cut the thermostat back to 175 and see if that will take longer and give it a chance to get some good color on it?

Anybody else have any suggestions as well? I surely would appreciate it.

Thanks, Ben.

 

[Paul Case Luca]

Any updates?

As for temps seems you have some good advice thus far... And from my experience one needs a few uses to understand how to get everything right. In my case I needed to (am trying to) retrain all of my offset smoker experiences. Suspect in a few more rounds you will have it nailed down.

Steve mentioned when I picked up the unit that some have add a piece of charcoal to get things brown, get a smoke ring, etc.  I haven't done this and caution what I've read this ass no flavor just some color. Might start out small at first...

 

[Benxbec]

Yes, I smoked a 6 lb chicken for New Years. I used a mixture of about a half of a piece of the Hickory that was sent with the smoker and some apple wood that would be equivalent to at least one of those dowels. I cut that up into smaller maybe pencil sized slivers.  I left the chicken in there for 4 hours to try and make sure it would have good color and here is what it wound up looking like.  The red is the Tony's that i used as a seasoning. What do you think?

 

[Paul Case Luca]

Looks good to me. How did it taste?

 

[Benxbec]

Really, you think that looks okay? As far as how it tastes it came out good, but I have had much better. Here is a duck that I did a few years ago, couldn't find any chicken pics but they always looked similar.

 

[DivotMaker]

To be honest, Ben, she looks a tad pale.  What did you do to prep the skin, and what temp did you smoke it at?  I prep by brining for a few hours, rinse with water, pat dry, then olive oil and a rub.  I cook chicken @ 250, which seems to help brown the skin.

 

[Benxbec]

I prepped it by rinsing it off and seasoning with Tony's just as I have always done and what I did to that duck. I set it to 225 and watched the thermometer and the temp ranged from 170-240. I am at a loss????

 

[DivotMaker]

OK, Ben.  Seasoning only on the skin probably is part of it.  A little olive oil will lubricate the skin, make the seasoning stick better, and aid in smoke absorption.  Duck, if I'm not mistaken, has a lot more natural oils and fat in the skin than chicken, which may explain why the duck gets more brown at the low temp.

Do me a favor - try the recipe I posted above, and see if you get better results.  I think the dry skin, and low temp may be part of the problem.  Also, get a scale to weigh your wood; it helps.  I use a cheap digital scale from Harbor Freight that works great.  2 to 2 1/2 oz of chunks for chicken.  You mentioned you "shaved into pencil size;" I would recommend leaving your wood in larger chunks.  It looks like the bird in the picture didn't get enough smoke...did it have a good smoke flavor?

Just a thought to help...try to duplicate someone's successful recipe (doesn't have to be mine), and see if your results are the same.