I'm new to smoking meat and need pointers

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mbrennan

Newbie
Original poster
Sep 24, 2017
4
10
Hollister California
Hi I'm Michael I'm from Hollister CA it's on the central coast so I'm new to this my parents and I purchased the Oklahoma Joe's Longhorn 3 in 1 combo and tomorrow I am smoking two whole chickens question is do I put the chickens in the smoker box or on the charcoal side
 
Welcome to SMF!

I think a good place for you to start would be with the free 5 day e-course.

It will really help you get started.

http://www.smoking-meat.com/smoking-basics-ecourse

I'm not familiar with your smoker, but I'm assuming you have a fire box & a cooking chamber.

The chicken would go in the cooking chamber.

Al
 
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I believe that your side firebox can indeed be used as a standalone grill. Much like the char-grillers can.  I wouldn't use it that way I would follow Al's advice and put all your food in the cooking chamber. If your only cooking one thing like hamburgers or hot dogs and want to grill only - sure use the firebox. If your smoking then use the chamber. I believe you have two sets of grates in your firebox. When I used to use my dou I would put the coals and chunks on the top grate so I wouldn't smoother the fire(better air flow). I hope this doesn't sound confusing. Any questions feel free to ask.

Chris.
 
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  Good morning and welcome to the forum from another hot and humid September day here in East Texas, and the best site on the web.   Lots of great people with tons of information on just about everything.

          Gary
 
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Sorry if I misunderstood. I never did it that way, but I knew I could if I wanted to,  Let us know how it turns out. 

Chris
 
I'm not familiar with your smoker so I looked it up...
Anything you want to smoke will always go in the smoker box regardless of what you're doing with the rest of the unit...if you try to smoke on the charcoal side I'm thinking it'll just be too hot and you'll do more grilling...the charcoal chamber is where your heat and smoke comes for smoking...the heat and smoke are directed into the smoke box from the charcoal side...

Now, that being said, I'm thinking you'll have issues trying to grill on the charcoal side of your unit while smoking. When you open the charcoal side to grill on you'll lose your heat and smoke source to the smoke box...
I think your chickens need to be completely done smoking before using the charcoal side for grilling.
I'm only guessing by a simple written description of your unit but I've used a regular oklahoma Joe without the propane grill so I'm thinking my guess is close.

I hope my response makes sense and is in time to help you out.

Walt.
 
Last edited:
Thank you I started on the smoker side and went to the charcoal and it's slow cooking it so that it works both ways from what I'm seeing
 
Yes...as long as you don't put the chicken directly over the coals it will. I've done it by shoving all my coals to one e d of the box and.put my meat on the far side away from the heat. In my opinion, it's not the best use of your okie Joe but it'll work...
Good luck and shoot us some pics of what you got going on...we love pics.

Walt
 
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