I am conducting an experiment today trying to maintain a small hot fire rather than the very large cooler (I suppose) fires that I've used for the past 25 years or so. I wrote a post a few weeks ago when first thinking of doing this. Link is below:
I have always completely filled my 24" (deep) x 12" (wide) x 20" (tall) firebox (FB) with oak and then lit it. A full load like that would burn for a good 8 hours without adding any wood. It would start out billowing dense white smoke and then as the fire matured, after about two hours, the smoke was thin enough to put meat in the cooking chamber (CC).
I loaded my firebox this morning with about a 1/4-load - I cut all wood down to only 10 inches long so that I could shove all of it to the back half of the FB. And then I only piled it about half-height of the FB. I lit it at 4:45 AM. Even right at the start of lighting the fire it made smoke, but probably 10% of what it used to. And now after 45 minutes of burning, the CC is way up to temp and I have it hovering at 280 F. I like to let things warm up at about 300 F - no higher as much of the CC is made of wood. I have a couple pieces of wood warming in the front half of the FB for when I need them. I'm going to try to keep at most a 1/4-load.
I'm very curious how much smoke will be made when I put a new log on. I had always thought putting a new log (unburnt) on was to be avoided because it would create too much smoke. From my observations so far, I'm thinking that perhaps it won't create too much smoke. We'll see - I'll report back as the burn goes.
I'm going to throw a 14-lb. pork butt and two chickens in the CC soon.
Here is a picture of my smoker. It is a masonry offset type.
Here is photo of firebox door:
Picture of fire about ten minutes after lighting:
Optimal Fire Management Approach for Stick Burner
I am contemplating a radial new approach (for me) to firebox fire management on my smoker. I have a medium sized masonry smoker that I've used for the past 25 years or so. It is an offset design (fire box to the side of cook chamber). My method of building my fire has been to fill the fire box...
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I have always completely filled my 24" (deep) x 12" (wide) x 20" (tall) firebox (FB) with oak and then lit it. A full load like that would burn for a good 8 hours without adding any wood. It would start out billowing dense white smoke and then as the fire matured, after about two hours, the smoke was thin enough to put meat in the cooking chamber (CC).
I loaded my firebox this morning with about a 1/4-load - I cut all wood down to only 10 inches long so that I could shove all of it to the back half of the FB. And then I only piled it about half-height of the FB. I lit it at 4:45 AM. Even right at the start of lighting the fire it made smoke, but probably 10% of what it used to. And now after 45 minutes of burning, the CC is way up to temp and I have it hovering at 280 F. I like to let things warm up at about 300 F - no higher as much of the CC is made of wood. I have a couple pieces of wood warming in the front half of the FB for when I need them. I'm going to try to keep at most a 1/4-load.
I'm very curious how much smoke will be made when I put a new log on. I had always thought putting a new log (unburnt) on was to be avoided because it would create too much smoke. From my observations so far, I'm thinking that perhaps it won't create too much smoke. We'll see - I'll report back as the burn goes.
I'm going to throw a 14-lb. pork butt and two chickens in the CC soon.
Here is a picture of my smoker. It is a masonry offset type.
Here is photo of firebox door:
Picture of fire about ten minutes after lighting: