I have a feeling that the HD chunks may not be kiln dried. Try another brand.
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I’ve also bought bags of wood chunks at Home Depot or Lowe’s, and find many of the chunks to be too big. I keep an old hatchet out at my kettle now, and split the chunks to get stuff closer the ‘golf ball size’ chunks we are told to use. Well, at golf ball diameter. Not fist sized.Comment
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Is your wood on top or in your charcoal a little bit? I found best smoke flavor and prettier smoke ( if that is a thing) is when I put wood below a bit or at the bottom.Comment
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Smoking in kettles is a bit tricky. Stick burners run with hot fires and vent the smoke. In a kettle when you want to go low and slow you’re already working in an oxygen starved environment. I remember one the of interviews with Dr. Blonder where he was saying that it was one of the harder environments to really get ideal smoke.
With all of that said, I smoke in my kettle with an SNS all the time as well as my WSM. I haven’t found the white smoke to be a big deal. Patience is key to avoiding it though. Get your coals up to temp and steady, then add the wood and let it get going. Once it looks less puffy, add your meat.
This procedure tends to work for me. However, when I’m in a hurry and doing a short cook like chickens, steak, or burgers I generally procrastinate and then can’t spare the extra 15ish minutes. I wonder if I would even be able to tell the difference in a side-by-side taste test.
Spinaker makes a great point. On short cooks, less is more. When I do steaks in a 22†kettle, once up to temp they’re gonna cook for like an hour to get to 118°F, and I try to run closer to 200°F rather than 225°F in the cooker. Fewer coals mean the fire itself is hotter. For short cooks on a hot day in Las Vegas I may run as few as 9 briquettes, but usually 12. I could probably get away with even less.
Taste is always more important than technique or doing it "right." I did a short cook with white smoke on ribeyes for friends s few weeks ago. I had TWO people tell me, "these are the best steaks I have ever had." They didn’t care about ideal smoke!
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I don't know what you're doing wrong with the BBQ smoke, but the title of your post brought this to mind... we have crappy smoke here in Grants Pass Oregon again. Started today from wildfire 30 miles north. We were all hoping to get through the summer without wildfire smoke. Still, I don't want to complain too loudly after seeing so many last summer lose their homes, belongings, livelihoods, and lives. Let's hope we don't see a repeat of that!
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Keep in mind that a fair amount of the smokey flavor isn't coming from the smoke itself but the gasses that charcoal and wood produce. When I burn sticks in my OKJ I try for an extremely hot but small fire. The smoke is barely even visible. The result is a very subtle smoke flavor - very sweet and in no way overpowering.Comment
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I've always wondered the same thing with my long cooks on my WSM. I have a cyberQ with a pit viper, so I usually just load the cooker up with lump charcoal, leave a hole in the middle (Soo's donut), and then place a few chunks of wood near the middle. Dump in the ashed-over charcoal from the chimney, set up the cooker, and then add the food after it comes to temp (and stays there, thanks to the temp controller). As I check the cook throughout, I always notice white smoke (sometimes billowy, sometimes not) when each piece of wood lights up (at least, I think that's what's happening). Should I be changing my process to get better smoke? Should I be cooking with less charcoal, so I have a smaller hotter fire? Even after a 12 hours cook, I have plenty of charcoal that hasn't got fire yet. Thanks for the help. I'm sure this has been discussed before.Comment
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Smoking77 white smoke is fine. You might try placing the wood on top so it gets more air for a blue smoke. On my Weber 22 with my Smokenator I place a large chunk on top it lasts an hour and then I place another of the same type or other type on. I get a very light white to blue smoke.Comment
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