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Smokers, Grills, Pitts & More => Diamond Plate Smokers/Grills => Topic started by: BBQ steve on June 01, 2010, 01:13:52 am

Title: Fire box question
Post by: BBQ steve on June 01, 2010, 01:13:52 am
After you have everything heated up and a good fire going, meat is on and cooking. When you add any new wood to the fire do you leave the side door open for awhile or do you close it right away? Just wondering if that might be where i picked up some of my over smoke on our ribs we cooked the other day. We were closing the door right after adding the wood. Everything else tasted great, but the ribs seemed to be over smoked.
Title: Re: Fire box question
Post by: Mike (AZBarbeque) on June 01, 2010, 03:25:13 am
When I first start mine up, I add lump charcoal and 2 pieces of wood.  Once I get the bed of embers going, then I just add 1 to 2 pieces of wood per hour depending upon how big they are.

I keep both top vents full open and then pushed back in about 1 inch.  I keep the bottom firebox vents full open.  Sometimes I will keep the door to the fire box open, but most times, I close it right away.

Sounds like you are not getting the air flow through the unit that you need.  If I remember right, Patrick had that same problem.

You want to make sure the smoke is not sitting in the chamber too long, you want it flowing right through.

Let me know what you are seeing..
Title: Re: Fire box question
Post by: n2dabluebbq on June 01, 2010, 07:34:27 am
i can't help but wonder if the wood you are using is seasoned enough or if is more green.?.
 one thing that some folks say helps is to preheat the wood. not sure i completely agree with that though.

question, what does the smoke look like when you add wood? does it stay a light blue or what?
Title: Re: Fire box question
Post by: squealers on June 01, 2010, 07:50:49 am

I only leave the door open at the very start to get the fire going... then when I add more wood, my stack is always fully open and I let the fire box vent half to fully open... no more open door...
Title: Re: Fire box question
Post by: azkitch on June 05, 2010, 07:13:03 pm
i can't help but wonder if the wood you are using is seasoned enough or if is more green.?.
 one thing that some folks say helps is to preheat the wood. not sure i completely agree with that though.

question, what does the smoke look like when you add wood? does it stay a light blue or what?

Many on this forum say--and I saw it somewhere else--that pre-heating the wood--like LOTS, as in too hot to handle--will start the elimination of the compounds that lead to the heavy white smoke.
Title: Re: Fire box question
Post by: BBQ steve on June 06, 2010, 12:56:26 am
The smoke was normal when smoking and after adding wood, maybe a little darker until the wood got going burning better.
Title: Re: Fire box question
Post by: Cops B Que n on July 07, 2010, 07:45:42 pm
I saw your problem and noticed that I had that problem once before.  What I realized then was that I didn't have a good enough coal bed.  The next time I smoked I started with more coals and two med. sized pieces of wood waited longer for the right temp and didn't have any extra smoke.  Each log started to burn without any extra smoke.