Lack of smoke flavor with 18.5 WSM and Billows temp controller.

[mdboatbum]

A long overdue Hello to all my friends here at SMF. Been a while since I've been here. Title kinda says it all. Got the Thermoworks Smoke X4 and the Billows temp controller, and when i use it, there is no smoke flavor at all. Noticed it on chicken, ribs and pork butt. If I run the smoker without it, there's plenty of flavor.
For reference, if I'm not using the Billows, I almost always run a full water pan and all vents wide open, and the smoker runs between 250 and 275 depending on the weather. I usually use the Billows if I want temps over 300. I generally use 3 fist sized pecan chunks to a full basket, no matter if I'm using the controller or not. For years, I used a mini tamale pot/Smokey Joe smoker with a BBQ Guru PartyQ, and never experienced this lack of smoke flavor. My guess is the 15cfm blower is too powerful for the smallish chamber of the 18.5 WSM, and its just burning too efficiently and burning off the smoke flavor. Kinda like a catalytic woodstove. Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

 

[6GRILLZNTN]

If in fact you are right about the fan being too powerful, just run your billows at lower temps to start off with(or not at all), then crank up the temp to finish. If I have my grill/smoker over 300°, smoking is not what I'm after. My pellet smoker is pretty much the same way. Anything over 250/275 and I get very little to no smoke flavor.

 

[thatmaceguy]

I've been using an 18" WSM with the Thermoworks Signals & Billows (and more recently, the Fireboard 2 Drive with the Humphrey's fan) for 3 years now and have never had an issue with smoke flavor.

For the sake of context, here's my setup:
- 2-4 fist-sized chunks of oak or hickory embedded in a full basket of coals
- start it up with about 15 lit briquettes spread across the top.
- top vent open about 1/4" and all the bottom vents closed except of course where the fan is attached. I drilled out one of the bottom vents to ~1" to improve airflow for the fan.
- I also added a diverter to push the blown air under the coals for a more even burn
- Signals and Billows setup and running from the start. I let it bring the pit up to temp.
- I run all of my cooks at 225

All that said, I have noticed that my fan doesn't need to run a whole lot, just pulses here and there if the temps drop. More towards the end when the coals are ashing up or running low. The cooker is sitting close to the 225 I want with mostly passive airflow.

The big difference between our setups is the temp. At 275 the fan is probably running a lot more. This leads into a problem I have with the Billows and one of the reasons I moved to the FB2D. The Billows is all or nothing, there's no variability to how hard it blows. If it's having to run a lot, even pulsing, it might be blowing the smoke right out of the cooker too quickly to settle on the meat. The FB2D (besides not requiring a stupid proprietary fan) will vary the voltage to the 12v fan and only blow as hard as needed to keep temp. The fan I use with the FB2D is 21cfm, but it was almost never running more than 30% (so, 7cfm or so, if it's linear, I don't know for sure).

 

[Colin1230]

T thatmaceguy , welcome to the forum.
Just FYI, ThermoWorks makes a damper for the Billows fan unit and works quite well. I use it on a WSM 14.

 

[gmc2003]

I don't see the need for a billows on an 18" WSM. They're pretty efficient all by themselves. Also you may want to go with a stronger profiled wood - maybe hickory.

Chris

 

[thatmaceguy]

Just FYI, ThermoWorks makes a damper for the Billows fan unit and works quite well. I use it on a WSM 14.

Yeah I'm aware, but like I said, I've had no issues with temp control or flavor with the Billows on the WSM.

I still think the variable speed design of the FB2D is much more sensible, plus not having to have a proprietary fan. (Honestly, every part of the experience with the Fireboard is better)

My Thermoworks Signals died on me again a couple weeks ago (battery is toast). Support just said they'd replace it for $99 because it's out of warranty. This is after replacing the charger twice and the fan splitter once, and having to recover from updates almost bricking the thing every few months. I'll get the replacement but then throw it on marketplace.