How I learned to stop worrying and love the dirty smoke.
First, Joel Yim made an offhand reference to it and then Jirby from Goldee’s has number of videos where he expands on that dirty smoke is nothing to fear and actually is something to seek out for at a portion of your cook.
When I first got my smoker I ran blue smoke only, with fire box door and damper fully open. Following Jirby’s lead, I put the meat on the pit before I start the fire and embrace the billowing white smoke. Better smoke flavor. Keeping the dampers partially closed is helping burn a slower but still hot enough fire and saving splits.
Large Big Green Egg, Weber Performer Deluxe, Weber Smokey Joe Silver, Fireboard Drive, 3 DigiQs, lots of Thermapens, and too much other stuff to mention.
Working with a Kamado, you just have to get it to where it is around 225. 10 minutes of white smoke is irrelevant.
For the Weber Kettle, white smoke means the charcoal isn't hot enough. You can run 250 with fewer hotter briquettes, or more briqs that aren't hot enough. That's why you should get the head of the snake good and ashed over.
I'm not familiar with the vids you're referencing, but do share their notions with a caveat or two. It seemed logical to me that a portion of that white "smoke" was actually steam from resident moisture in the fuel, and water vapor isn't going to have a flavor by itself. I get that the smoke particles from other constituents of the smoke might have some off-putting flavors, but experimentation proved that not to be 100% accurate as your commentary agrees. It may have to do with the wood variety, for instance I find mesquite more readily imparts bitterness, hickory sometimes. Oak less so, and imported charcoals are all over the board. Like so many things in cooking, experience is more reliable for a positive outcome than clinging to oft repeated "rules" that aren't always accurate no matter how many people fall for them.
Kamado Joe Big Joe III
Pit Barrel Cooker
Camp Chef Flat Top 900
Weber Performer 22
PowerFlamer Propane 160
Meater +
Thermoworks Smoke
Thermoworks Thermapen
Temp Spike
Mostly, I don't worry. But I also get the initial coals ash over, then add wood and unlit coals to the SNS, then cover and walk away while I prep other stuff. I come back in about 20 minutes and add the meat. by which time things have started to settle in.
If i remember correctly the Yoder manual said not to load until preheated. I don't know if it was because of the dirty smoke or interfering with the controller logic. Anyway, it will be interesting to read the comments to see what everybody is doing.
Nope, just can’t do dirty smoke. The taste of dirty smoke is horrible, in my opinion. I prefer when my wife is looking at the wsm and says to me, is that thing even cooking?
Last edited by Richard Chrz; June 4, 2022, 01:26 PM.
When I run my WSM, and probably with the Bronco, I use the minion method for low and slow. So new coals are always igniting. So there is always some white smoke mixed with the blue - not billowing but definitely there. So some "dirty" white smoke is inevitable I would think...
I was thinking the same thing. I run the snake method a lot on my kettle, which would have briquettes continuing to ignite all day. I've never noticed a problem or had a complaint that would indicate a dirty smoke taste.
Henrick says the same thing on one of his videos, or, at least, something that is consistent with that. I think one of the "accepted" points that is tenuous is that one blue smoke imparts the ultimate BBQ smoke flavor and that dirty smoke is any amounts is always a sin.
When I get that white smoke on my pellet smoker it's because the fire is going out or trying to light and it doesn't smell good or taste good on food, it almost had a bitter taste. So I wait for it to heat and make sure it smells like pellets burning first.
If not cooking outdoors, I am cooking on the stovetop with my 14" carbon steel wok, 12" CI skillet, or in the oven with my two Lodge CI pizza pans, or two dutch ovens. I've also got a nifty Lodge carbon steel grill pan that rocks for veggies outdoors.
I only haver experience with charcoal and wood, and I'll be honest - until I came here, I never thought about the color of the smoke, beyond not having black sooty smoke. I've smoked many hundreds of butts, ribs and chicken with white smoke still going on my offset over the past several decades. No one ever complained. I basically lit a full chimney, and once it was full engulfed in flame, dumped it into the firebox as my bed of coals, then added more wood and charcoal, and put the meat on even before the offset was preheated.
If doing low and slow BBQ, I still tend to put my food onto the Weber+SNS or the Kamado before I reach 225. Once I am at about 175, I'll make a final vent adjustment and put all the meat I am smoking on at the same time.
I think the only true bad smoke is the sooty black kind. A little white smoke is as others have mentioned, likely moisture steaming out of the wood splits. If you get really old/dry wood, you won't get much smoke at all.
so something I have recently begun doing, is if I want say 250, I will set the vents etc for 190-215. When I see it is setting there and sitting solid, I add my food. My experience the extra 20-30 degrees that happens with lid off on a new fire, (at least to me generally) takes me right to where I want to be set, rather than trying to bring down a fire.
I do the same as you, Jim, with my WSCGC, in kamado or in kettle mode. At about 180°, I start thinking about getting the meat on. That puffy white smoke looks so harmless, and so pretty, really. Plus we never get the creosote burps because it's absolutely not there.
Clearly I’m very late to this party but the uproar over dirty smoke in recent years has become beyond ridiculous. I use a 22” WSM and as someone mentioned above there will always be some white smoke as coals are firing all the time. If you’re eating smoked meat every day the carcinogens might build up to toxic levels but if you’re a weekend pitmaster it’s not really a concern. Also while blue smoke is the ideal for the majority of the cook, if it’s 100% of the cook it’s a very mild flavor. That seems to be what people like these days, and what you get from pellet cookers, but if you grew up on barbecue like me it’s nice to have a bit more of a smoky flavor as that was more common a couple of decades ago and still is in many older barbecue stops, particularly in the south. I think the message is be aware of the dangers, aim for blue smoke but the criticism I seen in other forums if someone dares show any white smoke from their cooker is absurd.
I concern myself more with the amount of smoke, than the color.
if smoke is billowing out like a locomotive, that's an issue. Once things settle, and light smoke is escaping, I don't worry about the color of it too much...
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