New Guy

[maineguy]

Greetings all. I have always loved good BBQ (especially pulled pork) and have been thinking about trying for a few years. Last weekend I bought a propane fired Brinkman vertical smoker. I hope to try my first smoke this weekend of a pork picnic. They happen to be on sale this week:)

I have been reading through the forum and hopefully the first smoke will go well. One of the biggest questions I have is with wood choice. The home depot I bought the smoker only had hickory and mesquite so I bought wood chunks. I also found a local Maine company who supplies wood and bought apple, oak and maple wood chips.

When I fired up the smoker to do a seasoning smoke I used the hickory chunks. It took quite a while to get what I thought was a good amount of smoke. I only soaked the chunks for around 40 minutes so maybe a longer water smoke would help.

So here come the questions. How smokey should the smoke be? Is there such a thing as too much smoke? Will the smoke get started quicker with chips rather than chunks? Is there such a thing as over soaking the chips/chunks?

The other big area of question is wood choice. Is there any benefit of mixing together wood types? Like I said I am going to do a pork picnic this weekend and my current choices are hickory, mesquite and hopefully oak, apple and maple if they arrive this week. If I were to blend some apple with say oak or hickory would the apple smoke be overpowered?

Thanks in advance for your help. If this is too detailed of a post for the roll call forum let me know and I will repost in the proper spot.

Greg

 

[bigbaldbbq]

Welcome to SMF, glad to have you here. As for the smoke. Thin, and almost blue is the way to go. If you can smell it, it is doing what it needs to do.

The heavy white smoke is way bad. I used to think it was what I needed to do. All it does is make the meat taste funny and messes up your smoker with all the extra cresote.

 

[irishteabear]

Welcome to SMF. Glad you joined us.

 

[olewarthog]

As mentioned, too much white thick smoke is bad. Ideally, you should be able to smell the smoke but barely see it. For your first run, err on the side of caution. Less smoke flavor is still edible. Too much smoke & your dog might not even eat it. I would recommend going with the hickory chunks for your first attempt. Mesquite has a much stronger flavor. After you have a good read on how much wood to use for a couple of cooks, then try the mesquite. As for mixing the wood if you get your apple, etc in. Again, keep the first run simple. Establish a baseline of what tastes good to you & your family, then experiment.

Welcome & be sure to take pics.

 

[maineguy]

Thanks guys. So I am now thinking that the "smokey" stage was probably too much. There was quite a bit of smoke coming out the chimney. Wow it doesn't seem to take a whole lot of chunks to get the proper level. Thanks for the advice!

 

[beer-b-q]

Welcome, Glad to have you with us. This is the place to learn, lots of good info and helpful members.

Be sure to check out Jeff's 5Day Smoking Basics eCourse, you can find it here

5 Day eCourse

 

[mballi3011]

First off welcome to SMF. You'll really like it here cause there are alot of good people here that would just love to help you with just about anything to do with smoking. As for your smoke like everyone has told you big white smoke is BAD thin smoke is GOOD cause it will flavor gentle like you want. The next thing you should do is take the E-course it's free and very informative. then go smoke something and if you have any question just ask here or go in the chat room here and you'll get your answer right then. So Go Smoke Something.
Welcome To The Addiction.

 

[smokin_tarheel]

Welcome to SMF, hope you have many happy smokes. I am a gasser also. Something that helped me a great deal was this forum here on SMF. Check it out.
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...play.php?f=109

 

[maineguy]

I decided to go propane because I was more interested in the final product and not the process. I just didn't want the extra work of monitoring the temp with charcoal. Plus I tend to have more time in the winter so I was thinking propane would make things easier in the cold.

 

[thomasyoung]

Welcome, glad to have you here at SMF!