Fine tuning smoke with the SnS

[Tim Clark]

I'm really going to get nit picky here but I have some questions about when exactly to put the meat on the grill when you're starting a long cook. Right now, here's the order I do things:

1. ​Light 15 briquettes in the SnsS and let them ash over.
2. Fill the SnS with unlit charcoal with the lit ones at one end.
3. Fill the trough with hot water.
4. Push about 4 chunks of smoking wood into the charcoal.
5. Put on the grate and set up my probes.
6. Put on the meat (ribs, brisket, pork butt)
7. Close the cover and start monitoring temps and adjusting vents.

So right now I'm noticing that very soon after I put on the cover I'm getting a lot of smoke. Probably too much. I'm not sure if it's from the unlit charcoal or the first chunk of smoking wood starting to light. In any case, I'm wondering if this first blast of smoke is good or bad. I could certainly wait to put the meat on until the temperature gets up to 225. In that case would it be better to wait to put the smoking wood on? I think the whole thing comes down to when those chunks of wood start producing good smoke.

Like I said, this is probably nit picking. Then again, this kind of fine tuning is what the Pit is all about. So, I'd be interesting in hearing different ways everyone goes about the beginning of a long cook.

[Jerod Broussard]

I put the meat on right before I dump the hot coals. The coals are poured right on top a chunk of wood. I have another chunk situated among the coals close to the first one. Good bit of smoke to start. Plenty air being supplied to heat things up. It all turns out excellent.

[David Parrish]

If you want to maximize the smoke ring I've found adding the meat when you add the wood is the way to go. If you are dead set on only smoking with thin blue smoke then you have to wait a few minutes.

The cloud of smoke you see when you first add the unlit charcoal and wood is from both the unlit charcoal and the wood. There's a lot of oxygen in The Pit at first and the fuel takes advantage of it. Once the oxygen percentage comes down the white smoke gets thin and then turns blue. So this is definitely a preference kind of thing.

Ribs added at same time as wood and Pit was warming up past 175 F on its way to 225 F:


Ribs added after the smoke had died down and The Pit was at 225 F

[Tim Clark]

Man, that was fast! Thanks for all this instant info. A couple of questions. Jerod, you said you put the meat on right before you dump the hot coals. Are you not adding mostly unlit charcoal to a small amount of lit coal? I can't quite figure out what you meant.

Dave, once again I shouldn't have looked at your pictures this close to dinner, especially when I have no meat in the house to cook. Anyway, I'm amazed by the difference of how the ribs look in the two pictures. I'm sure you probably didn't do these close enough together to do a real taste test. But can you remember a difference in the taste? I'm always a bit wary of over smoking but it's tough to experiment when you aren't doing it every day.

[Jerod Broussard]

1. I load the SnS full of unlit briquettes.
2. Take out what I want to light in the chimney.
3. Place a wood chunk in the void created by the briquettes I took out, and another chunk close by among the unlit briquettes.

[David Parrish]

Tim they were both excellent. It's been a while since I made them so I can't say which one was the winner. Also one rack is baby backs and one rack is St. Louis cut so there's that difference as well.

[Tim Clark]

Thanks, Jerod and Dave. I really appreciate getting all the details. Can't imagine what the outside world would think of our obsessions. But, man, there are SO many things worse to get obsessed about.

[ribeyeguy]

Depending on what I'm cooking I fill the coal chamber about half way with unlit coals and a few wood chunks. Then I dump a half chimney or so of ashed over coals on top to fill it, again it might be more or less depending on what I'm cooking. That's when I put the meat on. It's sort of a SNS modified Minion method.

Maybe that's wrong but it's worked well for me. Hopefully Pit Boss will chime in and let us know if that's an ok method.

[ribeyeguy]

Well.....because you're the boss and we're your minions, we follow your lead! By the way, how do you add one of those smiley guys to the end of a post, never been able to figure it out.

[David Parrish]

Just type colon then parenthesis. : ) without the space. Semi colon gets u a wink

[Tim Clark]

There are lots of those emoticons you can use. Just Google emoticons and you'll find keystroke combos. Some of them work on this site and some of them don't. And, yeah, as far as I'm concerned, Dave's the boss! 👍

[ribeyeguy]

It's actually not a lot more, a half chimney was probably a bit of an exaggeration. Guessing, I'd say it's a 2 to 1 ratio of unlit to lit, I just eyeball it. And yes, last fall I did a turkey breast that was on for about 4 hours. When it was done there were enough coals to last another 2 or 3 hours. I kept it right around 225 for the entire cook and never had to add additional coals or water.

[Tim Clark]

That's pretty interesting. Wonder if anyone has looked into just how much lit and unlit coals you actually need to maintain a certain temp for a certain time. Yeah, more obsession. But still....

[Huskee]

I tend to add the meat once the grill's up to temp ~200-230. My ribs look more like Dave's 2nd pic pretty consistantly, whether BBs or StLs.

[Huskee]

Tim Clark I get about 90min on ~1/2 chimney (~40-45 briqs) of well-lit coals only, no unlit, when cooking at 325-350...such as with chicken. Winter or summer haven't noticed a huge difference, although I'm sure there's some. When we were testing I found 12 lit briquets once well-lit (grey, not smoking anymore) to a chimney of unlit brought the cooker up to ~225 at a decent pace and held there for 8+ hours at 225ish...(of course, everyone already knows this much) and that was in moderate weather, not cold but not mid-summer heat either.

From there you can make some ballpark guesses as to what you'll need for a given temp+time. Want a ~4hr cook at 225? 12 lit briqs and ~1/2 chimney oughtta do ya. If you want a hotter cook but for longer, such as with a turkey @325 which takes longer than a chicken, add a half chimney of unlit coals first, then add your half chimney of well-lit briqs on top.

[Tim Clark]

Thanks, Huskee. Got a lot of good info from everybody. I think next time I'll try your method of waiting for a bit before I add the meat. At least if I'm doing ribs. Maybe if I wind up doing 2 racks I'll put one on right away and put on the second after the smoke has settled down, maybe 45 minutes later. If so, I'll do a detailed report back with some pictures and taste notes. Could be interesting.