First time using my smoke vault 18 questions

[Still Trying]

I fired up my new smoke vault 18 this morning to season it. It was a free gift to me so I am gonna give it a go. 9nly mod I made was to flatten the stops on the dampeners on both sides and top. Everything else was not touched. I hooked it all up, set it where there was little to no wind, filled the water tray, added 4 small to medium hickory chunks from Walmart (western brand), closed both side vents all the way and opened the top all the way. I have a two probe digital thermometer set up reading ambient temp in the middle and top racks to see the profile.

It fired up nice and I set it up to the lowest setting. It got to 200 pretty quick. No matter where the temp went there was about a 20 degree difference between the middle and top of the cooker. I raised and lowered the temp to get a feel for sensitivity and all went well.

Only issue was the amount of smoke I got. As I said I used 4 medium sized hickory chunks spread around the plate. The plate was sitting in the lowest rack per instructions. After an hour no smoke. I thought the wood might be wet but the entire box was bone dry. Only after setting the plate on top of the drip tray....pretty much right on top of the fire and setting the temp to 225 did I get good smoke.


Did I do something wrong?.....should I start the chunks with a torch before putting the chip tray on the first rack? Would chips be better? Seem like putting it on the drip pan that low is not right.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Buckeyedude]

I dont have one, but ive seen them used. You might want to try smaller pieces of wood like chips. Im pretty sure my buddy was using smaller pieces in his!

 

[Still Trying]

I will give that a go.....when you start it up should I try for a much hotter temp them bring down to target once smoking?

 

[JLeonard]

Looked your cooker up online…..from reading your post above…. Did you have you water tray (the deeper square pan) above the chip tray (The flat tray)? Or vice versa?

Jim

 

[Still Trying]

Water pan was on the next rack above the chip tray.

 

[Nefarious]

I have one of those. Haven't used it since I bought my recteq. I used chips and not chunks. Maybe you can use chunks with chips, never tried it. Be careful as it goes through chips a good rate, I had to replace the chips every hour or so.

 

[Still Trying]

Gonna try again today......will cut down the chunks more and fire it up at a much higher temp to get things going. If all goes well I am gonna smoke a chicken for the first cook.

 

[SmokinAl]

I had a SV 24 for several years, and it was my go to smoker. First of all leave the bottom & top vents open all the way. For wood I took a split & cut discs about 1/2” thick. They would produce smoke for about 45 minutes, then. Would put another one in there. So in essence you are tending to this like a stick burner. But I got some great Q from that unit.
Al

 

[Still Trying]

Top and bottom vents open.....did not try that on my first cook. Any thoughts on starting hot to get the chunks to start then back off?

 

[Nefarious]

Top and bottom vents open.....did not try that on my first cook. Any thoughts on starting hot to get the chunks to start then back off?

Yes, I started hot to get the chips going. Once smoke was generated turned down to the desired temperature.

Another thing I did to get better smoke was to use a smoke tube with a mixture of pellets and wood chips. Worked great as a secondary smoke generator.

 

[Still Trying]

Where did you place the smoke tube? So you did chunks and a tube inside at the same time?

 

[Nefarious]

Where did you place the smoke tube? So you did chunks and a tube inside at the same time?

I put the tube in the center of the lowest rack of the smoker, i never used more than 2 racks for cooking. I just used chips, chips mixed with the pellets in the smoke tube and chips in the bottom tray.

 

[Still Trying]

Thanks.

My first smoke went well yesterday. Thanks for the rips on air vents and start up methods. The smoker did well with smoke.....had to add small and medium hunks about every hour. Temp control was not easy. Was trying to sit at 250.....was happy to get it to stay between 260 to 270. Any tips on a more fine control would be appreciated.

I did a spatchcock chicken. I used killer hogs AP on it. Let it set in the ice box for an hour or so. Cooked at 260 for 75% of the time then cranked to 390.....which is the max it got to.....to crisp the skin. Took it off when the brest reached 160 and let rest 15 min before eating. Was very just and flavorful. The skin was not white crisp enough. Next time I will put some sort of oil on it to help.

Thanks for all the help!

 

[Buckeyedude]

Thanks.

My first smoke went well yesterday. Thanks for the rips on air vents and start up methods. The smoker did well with smoke.....had to add small and medium hunks about every hour. Temp control was not easy. Was trying to sit at 250.....was happy to get it to stay between 260 to 270. Any tips on a more fine control would be appreciated.

I did a spatchcock chicken. I used killer hogs AP on it. Let it set in the ice box for an hour or so. Cooked at 260 for 75% of the time then cranked to 390.....which is the max it got to.....to crisp the skin. Took it off when the brest reached 160 and let rest 15 min before eating. Was very just and flavorful. The skin was not white crisp enough. Next time I will put some sort of oil on it to help.

Thanks for all the help!

Nice! I really like killer hogs stuff! And Im glad you found your groove to work with! Get use to feeding it chips and pellets! That is one of the "downsides" or "upsides" to not using a pellet pooper. You have to be there to keep it in check and feed it! Having said that though, I feel you get a better flavor and smoke ring using the "real" stuff although it might be a little more tedious splitting it up and constantly feeding it!