Can't get the smoke going

[skeaterbait]

Hey all,

Brand new here and have a question. I have a gas vertical smoker and I can't seem to get any smoke out of the wood, chips or chunks, without driving my temps upwards of 300 degrees. Any suggestions or thoughts?

 

[fftwarren]

is the wood box right over the burner? Mine is in a cast iron holder right over the burner and it burns the wood up too fast almost. Whats the name brand on the smoker? or can you post a pick of the set up?

 

[skeaterbait]

It's a Perfect Flame vertical. It too has the cast iron box right over the flame.

 

[jaxgatorz]

I have that exact smoker...First thing u should know is that the thermometer on the unit is trash.When mine read 300 it was actualy about 240 grate temp...I have no trouble getting smoke from the chip tray..In fact i use chunks and have to place them in the corners of the tray to not get too much smoke....It's a goos little smoker once u get used to it.Get yourself a digital probe thermometer so u can see the actual temps inside the smoker....Happy smokes..

 

[skeaterbait]

Good info, thanks kindly.

 

[coffee_junkie]

Can you smell smoke? You don't actually need to see it in order for it to be doing its thing, in fact less is better. Go for thin and blue smoke rather than white and billowing smoke. You could also try the luhr jensen sawdust stuff sprinkled around your chunks, just to get things moving along.

 

[mballi3011]

Well like Coffee says if you can smell smoke you are doing the right thing. The billowing white smoke will give you a bitter taste to the meat.

 

[coltrain]

I've had just the opposite problem with by GOSM-BB. The first 2 times I used it I used chips rather than chunks since that's what I had. I filled the smoke box to the top and after 15 minutes, that thing was pumping out a pile of thick white smoke - so much that I thought the fire dept. might show up! It kept on pumping out thick white for nearly 5 hours - we ended up throwing out most of the chicken that was in there. The next time I stuffed it with chunks and a handful of chips. Again it spit out a ton of white smoke until the chips had burned up. It was still spittin more smoke than I would care for - but at least it turned to thin blue. On the last smoke I just used 2  big and a few small chunks and it worked out really well. I added 1 more small chunk about 2 hours into a 3 hour smoke, but probably could have just let it go at that point.