Electric Smoker - How long do I keep putting pucks?
I'm trying out an electric smoker for the first time (Bradley Original Smoker), my butcher is lending it to me for the day.
My question is about the pucks, do I keep putting them in for the whole 12 hour cook or should I stop at a certain time? And does it do any harm if the wood pucks are from different trees? I've got mesquite, apple, alder, hickory and maple. I've already put a few of the mesquites in, but I dont have enough of each to do a full cook.
No you don't need to feed it pucks for the whole 12 hours.
It's pretty much up to you to decide how much smoke flavor you want - the longer you feed pucks the heavier the smoke flavor will be.
I also wouldn't just try and use all the various pucks in the same cook. Makes it hard to determine which smoke wood you like or dislike. Mesquite is one where many people either love it or hate it.
If this is your first experience with a smoker I would just stick with hickory as that is the most common flavor most folks think of when they think of smoked meat (in most of the US anyway).
With your electric smoker, the pucks provide very little heat, so think of them as a seasoning - a smoke flavoring. Since you already used your Bradley, you can begin to assess the amount of smoke flavoring that suites your taste and use more or less pucks accordingly. Bradley has recipes at their website, but some are questionable. For example a rib recipe instructs you to wrap the ribs in foil, smoke for two hours, then unwrap and smoke some more. Meat takes on smoke and color best at the outset of a cook, plus you'll end up steaming the ribs instead of smoking them. So, follow our recipes and let your taste buds be your guide as to how many pucks to use.
We recommend sticking to one type of wood until you master you're smoker, then trying other types if you wish. You want to eliminate variables as you get to know your cooker. Regarding the type of wood, mesquite is known to impart a strong flavor, but your pucks may not have the umph of logs.
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