Second Ever All Wood Cook

[Dewesq55]

So, issuing all of the great info I obtained here, as well as from watching a boatload of YouTube videos, I planned to do my second ever all wood cook in my COS. I thought I frowas donem the start when I got up and it was raining, which had not been in the forecast a couple of days ago. Fortunately my new insulation mod has keep the rain from affecting my cooker temps. They cooker is drawing like a champ, which had previously been a problem for me. I followed everyone's advice in running both vents wide open and controlling temps with the size of the fire. I had bought a bag of hickory mini logs from Ace Hardware and split them all up into pieces no more than a couple of inches square. 1 of those every half hour or so is keeping temps between 245° and 275°, generally closer to 250°, but right now the last split spiked it up to the 275° range. But, so far, so good. And I'm using lots less fuel than I expected with the small splits.

[NapMaster]

May the force be with you young padawan.

[klflowers]

What you cooking?

[Dewesq55]

2 racks of SLCs

[Dewesq55]

I wanted something that I know I can got well practically with my eyes closed so I could focus my attention on learning how to manage my fire.

[Dewesq55]

It's actually looking like I have to add 1 small split every 15 minutes, that that's still only any 1 mini log every hour. Much better in terms of amountof fuel used than I thought it would be. Here's s picture of my very small fire that it's working great:

and here's with a fresh split added. This is the size I'm using:

[RonB]

Congrats on figuring it out. Ya got this now.

[jecucolo]

Thanks for the pics. It helps me understand the process better.

[Dewesq55]

You're welcome. The fire is tiny, but hot. You might not be able to tell from the pix, but I put an old piece of grill rack in the basket at an angle in order to keep the coal bed concentrated at one side, rather than all spread out. It seems to be working "grate!" (Ugh!)

[Steve B]

Awesome. Glad this is going to plan. Isn’t it sooo satisfying when you figure out how it’s supposed to work and you can execute it.
I know it was for me.
Congrats and show us some more pics. 👊👊

[Dewesq55]

Yeah, it really is. To be honest, I was kind of shocked that it worked as well as it did.

[Dewesq55]

So, the cook it's done -earlier than I expected. I'll show pics of the food in the SUWYC thread later. But some thoughts on how it went:

The avowed purpose of this cook was to try out and practice what for me is a new approach to fire management in my pit that would allow me to successfully do an all wood cook. On that level it was pretty successful. The only real glitch/hitch was around 4 hours in I started to have s problem with built up ash choking my fire and produced some dirty smoke. Because of an issue with my pit, I couldn't really correct that on the go, so I introduced some more air into the fire box via a small electric fan pointed directly at the intake. This allowed me to finish the cook without too much of the dirty smoke. I'm pretty sure I know how to correct for that the next time.

The small splits worked very well for keeping the fire within a usable range, especially if you put them on at the correct time. For my pit, at least today, the correct time was as soon as the pit temperature started to drop even a tenth of a degree. once I got the hang of it, I found I was putting one on every 10 minutes, however. I guess I can live with that on the occasions when I want to do an all wood cook. I don't know, but I suspect that the ambient weather today, chilly and rainy, may have had something to do with that. My

the food seemed to cook quite a bit faster than I expected. The bottom side of the racks were very well cooked and dark, caramelized. that is not usually what happens in my pit. Also, at least one of the racks seems to be fairly over-cooked which means that it will pretty much fall apart when you try to pick it up. Admittedly, that rack was a thin one, it even had some shiners on it. It was bought by my mother-in-law and I used it just because it was taking up room in my freezer.

as I said above, I will post photos in the Show Us What You're Cooking thread later.

I want to thank everybody who posted tons of useful information regarding fire Management in a stick burner on this site in years past.

[Ahumadora]

Sounds like you got it figured even with adverse conditions. You can go bigger and use chunks to give you more burn time. Splits have more surface area and will burn faster than the same weight of wood in a chunk.

[Dewesq55]

Yeah, I was just thinking about that. I'm sure I can get higher temps by increasing the size of the fire.

[Santamarina]

Way to go! I went to all-wood cooks several years ago and haven’t looked back. Finding the right size wood split to keep temps stable has been fun. I get splits from a local wood guy that are 14-18” long. I cut them in half; thirds if they’re thicker.

Does your firebox have a door at the end? Mine has the hinged top just like your photo, but also has a door on the end with a vent. I keep the door wide open for lots of air, but that door is also how I shovel out ash during the cook so my fire stays blazing.

[Dewesq55]

Mine doesn't have a door in the end. It used to have an ash drawer under the firebox, but I sealed up the bottom of the firebox so I could use a controller fan to maintain temps on charcoal and chunk cooks.