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Need help starting and maintaining fire and temps

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Cajun Smoker

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I'm hoping you guys can help here. Yesterday was my first burn with a stickburner and I don't think it went like it should. Started with three splits of oak in the firebox with propane assistance. Added a 4th when the temp was still around 150 about an hour later. It still didn't go up much although fire was burning good in firebox. Then I remember that you control the heat with the dampers on my stacks. (Hey, I'm new. I'm learning!) We opened dampers all the way and temp creeped from 170* to about 265* in about 30 minutes. I finally saw the thin blue smoke at times. 265* was about as high as I could get it, but it maintained for a while. A lot of white, puffy smoke had passed through the cooking chamber and out the stacks. After opening doors to check meat and take pics for Q-view, the temp started dropping fast. Maybe I should have added another split before I did, but I couldn't get it back to 250*+ even after adding a couple splits. Finally I turned the propane back on and after about 15 minutes the temp creeped back to 250 or so. I just finished the smoke like that. During the entire smoke we threw hickory chunks in the firebox, but the weren't big pieces. It was all I had. We're supposed to get a lot of rain and the wind was very breezy. I don't know if this affected things or not. In another post somebody said to heat it up over 300* and then bring it down. I don't know how I could have gotten it to 300*+. Any suggestions on what went wrong?
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Final results
Chicken came off after 3 hours and 45 minutes. I only had to cook chicken for about 3 hours on my MES. It was moist, tender and juicy. The problem I noticed though is that when we later took the chicken off the plate there was a good bit of black 'stuff' on the plate. I'm guessing it was all the smoke from the oak splits. This is another thing I need to figure out. Again, any help or suggestions here? I was hoping the entire smoke would go a little better!
#1 - December 02, 2008, 03:09:22 pm

Crash

  • Karma: 20
Welcome to the site CS.  You'll definitely get some responses to your questions.  I've never cooked on a DP, so I'm useless for this post.  Only thing that I can offer is that high winds and cool outside temps will have an effect on the smaller smokers.  I'd have to think that there would be some temp differential on those larger units as well.
#2 - December 02, 2008, 04:33:27 pm
I love animals.  They're delicious!
VRM Pit Crew

Mike (AZBarbeque)

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Did you have the damper under the fire box open as well?  Sounds like you had an air flow issue.

Normally I use a bit of Charocal and 1 - 2 pieces of wood initially, then I just add 1 to 2 pieces of wood each hour to keep temp about 225 - 250.

Sounds like with everything you had in there, you should have been burning much higher.  Did you use an independent temp gauge on the grate to see if your temps were consistent with your door temps?

What model DP do you own?  Are you here in the Phoenix area?  If so, let's meet up and I can go over how to dial in your DP with you.

Welcome to the site, great to have you.  Look forward to seeing lots of your posts and getting to meet you out at many of our future events.

Mike
#3 - December 02, 2008, 05:22:30 pm
Michael J. Reimann
Realtor - Clients First Realty (Real Job) - www.TheReimannWay.com
Owner/President - AZBarbeque - #1 BBQ Club in Arizona
Owner/Pitmaster - AZBarbeque Catering - www.AZBarbequeCatering.com

If God wanted us to be Vegetarians, why did he make animals out of meat??

Cajun Smoker

  • Karma: 0
Did you have the damper under the fire box open as well?  Sounds like you had an air flow issue.

Normally I use a bit of Charocal and 1 - 2 pieces of wood initially, then I just add 1 to 2 pieces of wood each hour to keep temp about 225 - 250.

Sounds like with everything you had in there, you should have been burning much higher.  Did you use an independent temp gauge on the grate to see if your temps were consistent with your door temps?

What model DP do you own?  Are you here in the Phoenix area?  If so, let's meet up and I can go over how to dial in your DP with you.

Welcome to the site, great to have you.  Look forward to seeing lots of your posts and getting to meet you out at many of our future events.

Mike

Hi Mike, Yes, the damper was open underneath. The fire looked to be burning good, but the temps didn't rise like I thought they would. I did have a guage on the grates and it was a little hotter than the door thermometers by about 20*.

I didn't use any charcoal. Is the small, regular pieces like you see in a BBQ grill what you're talking about? How long does your fire burn before you start cooking?

I live in Louisiana, so I doubt we could meet. That would be very helpful to me though. I have a DP 50. I posted pictures of it somewhere here today!
#4 - December 02, 2008, 05:56:19 pm

Mike (AZBarbeque)

  • Karma: 171
 ;D  Yea, I saw your other post after I suggested that.

I would check to make sure all your baffles are open and make sure that there isn't anything blocking the tubes from the Fire Box into the Smoke Box.

Then, when you start the fire initally, have all the baffles open as well as the door to the Fire Box.

Once the fire gets going, then close the fire box door and close the baffles on the top about 1/4 so that they are open 3/4ths.

I would be surprised if you could not get it up to temp doing this, there would have to be another reason as this should easily bring it up to temp. 

Sometimes when I put too much wood or charcoal in it initally, I get the temp too high, 350 - 400 and I have to let it burn down before I can throw any meat on it.

Let me know what your results are on your next cook.

Good Luck!!  ;)
#5 - December 02, 2008, 07:21:58 pm
Michael J. Reimann
Realtor - Clients First Realty (Real Job) - www.TheReimannWay.com
Owner/President - AZBarbeque - #1 BBQ Club in Arizona
Owner/Pitmaster - AZBarbeque Catering - www.AZBarbequeCatering.com

If God wanted us to be Vegetarians, why did he make animals out of meat??

Dow

  • Karma: 0
My suggestion if you had trouble getting the smoker to temp and it's breezy is turn the smoker 180 so the wind is blowing in your face and the smoke burns your eyes when you open the lid.  The air needs to flow through the smoker.

I have a DP 70 and I am also a stick burner and I have experienced the same thing and discovered when I rotated the pit then I was struggling to bring the temp down. 

My normal routine is to leave the dampers wide open and control the heat on my firebox.  I'm not bashful with the wood at start up, I like to load the firebox and get a good set of coals established.  The temp. gets up to 300-350 and when it burns down to desired temp I add the meat.  I wind up adding wood hourly (sometimes longer depending on weather) to maintain temp.  Each time I add wood, I like to leave the doors to the firebox wide open until the wood catches good and the smoke changes back to clear, then close the doors.  This helps keep the "black stuff" off your meat.  You can also cover the meat loosely with foil when you add wood to keep the "black stuff" off. 

I have discovered on windy days that if the wind is blowing from the pit to the firebox, you can not add enough wood to get the temp above 200.  I prefer to have the wind to my back, but when I start having to burn more wood than normal, I rotate.

#6 - December 02, 2008, 08:47:31 pm

Cajun Smoker

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I know from what I've read that most people don't have any problems building and maintaining their fires. I'm new to this so I guess I'll learn as I go. I was just puzzled as to why I couldn't get my temps higher. I'll try the suggestions that you guys have given me and see how that does. I also got some new, seasoned wood so hopefully that will help. It's possible that the wood I used earlier wasn't the best. Thanks again for the suggestions and I'll let you know how my next smoke goes.
#7 - December 03, 2008, 08:22:21 am

Cajun Smoker

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Using the 'new' wood I got, I recently smoked some baby backs and chicken quarters. The fire was blazing, but my door thermometers showed about 215-225 on both sides. They finally got up to 250 and stayed there. It must have been plenty hot because my ribs only took 2 hours and my chicken quarters took about 1.5 hours. I know this is much faster than it takes most people and I didn't think it could be done so soon. I gave the meat every test I knew to check for "doneness."  The meat tasted great and it was definitely done. I think the new hickory wood made a lot of difference.
#8 - July 29, 2009, 12:36:34 pm

PAT YOUNG

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CAJUN SMOKER, I basically do what MIKE/DOW said, was your wood green or seasoned? I do prefer to start a little higher, then you will have a good bed of coals to start with. just let the temps drop down naturally or depending on how much meat your putting on the pit, the meat itself will drop the temps enough to be were you want to be roughly!
#9 - July 30, 2009, 03:08:45 am

bbqwant2b

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Using the 'new' wood I got, I recently smoked some baby backs and chicken quarters. The fire was blazing, but my door thermometers showed about 215-225 on both sides. They finally got up to 250 and stayed there. It must have been plenty hot because my ribs only took 2 hours and my chicken quarters took about 1.5 hours. I know this is much faster than it takes most people and I didn't think it could be done so soon. I gave the meat every test I knew to check for "doneness."  The meat tasted great and it was definitely done. I think the new hickory wood made a lot of difference.
What was the temp at the grate ? Ribs flat or on stands ? What type of thermometers ?
#10 - August 03, 2009, 10:13:13 pm
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