wood chip question?

[lu1847]

I have a smoke hollow electric smoker(pictured in avatar) with 1500 watt element. I am just wondering about how many cups of wood chips should i be burning through, say smoking a 7 1/2 pound butt. My wood chip pan is 4"x4" and 3'' tall. Any info would help thanks.

 

[brohnson]

You'll want to fill up the first time than like 1/2 way through your smoke put some more in it, that's a pretty small pan.

 

[lu1847]

another question, shoud the chips turn to ash or just become black?

 

[deltadude]

I don't have that smoker, so I can't honestly say how much. But without any info start with small amount (you want thin blue smoke TBS), once you have achieved that next batch add more, keep doing that until the smoke is too heavy and you no longer have that TBS. When you are getting white smoke and it takes a long time to finally go back to TBS, you have too much wood. If you are getting dark smoke, that is bad and ruins your meat.

Each time you add wood it will usually start with white smoke then turn to TBS provided you have good combustion and not too much wood burning/smoldering.

You should have ash if you have good combustion.

 

[mballi3011]

I would say that you should change out your chips maybe every hour and a half or so. Just keep an eye on them and you will see how fast they burn and then change out as needed. I have a gasser and one of the first things I did was change out the chip pan for a bigger unit to hold more chips. You don't want to open the door anymore than you have to. Remember you have to spirtz almost every hour or so too.

 

[lu1847]

thanks for the info.

 

[placebo]

Deltadue has given you some sound advice. Much better to error on the side of too little than too much. That way you stand a better chance of your first few tries being edible!