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Naive Question: How is food cooked on log burners/offsets not inedibly smokey?

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  • Michael_in_TX
    replied
    Thanks all and the combustion temperature plus airflow makes sense. It just hit me as I was watching those videos: waitaminute, if I put a split in my PBC, the food would taste like wood!

    Leave a comment:


  • Jerod Broussard
    replied
    Henrik I would believe you if you had used at least some stoichiometry, and I had never smoked in a cheap offset that was notorious for pathetic air flow.

    Leave a comment:


  • Steve B
    commented on 's reply
    What Henrik said.

  • CaptainMike
    commented on 's reply
    Thank you, Professor. I was going mention something similar from a fire behavior/chemistry viewpoint, using a structure fire analogy. My explanation might have been a little esoteric, though.

  • Henrik
    replied
    It’s a good question. The short answer is: combustion temperature. The fire in a kettle or kamado is just smoldering or very slow burning. That means the combustion temp is slow, creating ‘dirty’ smoke from the few chunks of wood you add. With an offset with good draft, the combustion temp is much higher, so it evens out in the end. The VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) in wood add flavor, and when the wood burns hotter they burn, leaving ‘less’ smoke flavor. I just did a YT video on this, let me know if you want a link.

    Leave a comment:


  • SchweinStein
    replied
    You got part of the answer in that airflow speed is part of the reason. I think the biggest reason is the "type" of burn. If the cook knows how to use his smoker, the offset will be fully combusting the wood and virtually no white smoke will be coming out of the stack. Whereas with other smokers, and for example the kettle, the wood tends to smolder more. Smoldering and under-burning can produce more undesirable flavors associated with oversmoking. This is compounded by the fact that the airflow is slow and the smoke is trapped in the cooker for a longer period of time.

    If you want to read a more in depth explanation Meathead has a good article found here:

    Learn all about wood smoke and how it adds flavor to BBQ. Find out whether you should be using wood chunks, chips, pellets, logs, or sawdust in your cooker. Discover the truth behind the claim that different woods have different flavors.

    Leave a comment:


  • Jerod Broussard
    replied
    Over smoked in my opinion is over thinking. Only so many smoke particles can adhere to that surface.

    Leave a comment:


  • Naive Question: How is food cooked on log burners/offsets not inedibly smokey?

    By coincidence I've been watching several videos of people using offsets or other log burners. I've noticed there tends to be a typical setup procedure for the fuel: a moderate bed of charcoal onto which one places a wood split and then replenishes that wood split regularly throughout the cook.

    Now, on my PBC and my Weber Kettle, I have to be very careful about how much wood chunks I use. Any more than two handfuls of ~6 oz chunks, especially hickory, and I am in danger of over-smoking my food.

    Yet, on a log burner, 12 oz of wood is quite smaller than a single wood split! And I certainly don't replenish throughout the cook.

    So how isn't the food on an offset inedibly smokey? Is it the cooking chamber volume (offsets and other log burners tend to be quite large, of course)....is the airflow speed? I've noticed that most offsets have relatively large smokestacks.

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