Hickory wood - flames instead of smoke !

[smokinfam]

I have a GOSM. Today, I smoked a turkey and ran into some issues with my hictory wood chunks. My internal smoker temperature was 250F. I noticed that my wood kept catching on fire! I would blow it out and then it would flame right back up. I tried covering the wood box lid with aluminum foil, but the wood would still flame up. I found this all day long. I caused me to go through a lot of hictory chunks in the process.
Any suggestions how I can get smoke instead of flames?
thanks.

 

[monty]

Was your hickory commercially packaged or cut locally?

Commercially packaged stuff can sit around for a long time and would require a good soaking.

I use mostly cherry with some maple added and will on occasion buy hickory and mesquite chunks. The maple and cherry come right from my wood pile and rarely need soaking but the commercially packaged stuff I will soak sometimes overnight. And I rarely have had a problem with this in my GOSM.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!

 

[ron50]

What Monty said.

 

[bbq bubba]

And thus we have the debate on to soak or not to soak!
I have also found using my ECB that i have to soak my chunk's or i get flame's but when i use wood from my own stash for my off-set i never have that problem!

 

[monty]

The only time I have a problem is when the commercial stuff is too dry. Whether in my GOSM or my ECB the stuff I cut is usually OK. But the bagged stuff....yeesh!

In all fainess I have found some commercial stuff that did not need soaking but I have also found some hickory chunks I could match light. Go figure!

Cheers!

 

[kew_el_steve]

I always soak my chunks for use in my GOSM. Half hour in a bucket of water. Any type of wood that I'm using.

250 is high in a GOSM, so plenty of opportunity for fire if other precautions are not used.

Be careful about trying to cover it up to keep the fire down, as opposed to soaking. Covering makes creosote, which is a very bad thing!!! The wood needs lots of air to make TBS, so soaking makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[smokinfam]

I did use the prepackaged hickory chunks from the store and I did soak them. I was cooking at 250F since I read this was the right temperature for Turkey. I soaked the hickory for about 1 hour. Maybe I need to soak the wood overnight?

 

[ozark rt]

I wrap 2 or 3 fist size chunks in HD foil then poke a few holes here & there. Sometimes they will flare up some but usually they just smolder & smoke. But I am using a SFB smoker with charcoal though.

 

[monty]

IF using commercially packaged wood I would definitely recommend at least eight hours of soak. The stuff, usually, is just too dry.

Cheers!

 

[richtee]

OK I'm admitting I chickened out. I PM'd Monty and expressed this view: What the he-doublehockeystix are you soaking wood you worked so hard to season for? Was afraid I missed something, and I did. Apparently, commercial woods are of less than desirable moisture content. In addition, I was ignorant of this, never having used commercially available wood.

All my stuff I have cut, or had cut for me, and stored in the usual way...meaning it'll NEVER get to furniture grade dryness. Which, incidentially, is apparently too dry.

In summation... soak if you must but be sure you need to- is now my official position. If ya give a flying fish, anyhoo..