New to BBQ - technique sharing/thoughts

[jmartis]

Hi yall,

I moved to Texas a few years back and fell in love with BBQ. I find myself stuffing my face with Brisket, ribs, chicken, pork, and sausage whenever I can. I recently got a bbq with a firebox smoker. I wanted to share my learning experiences and see if anyone can expand on them, give me advice. My biggest challenge was mastering my firebox. Wood is a whole nother beast of nature. My first attempt was miserable. I had Cowboy lump charcoal (bleh) and regular briquettes, and hickory chunks. It was impossible to keep the temp I wanted, the smoke flavor was weak, and briquettes suck.

Lessons learned...
NO charcoal briquettes in the smoker.
Not getting a good good base fire results in painful refueling/loss of temp

Second time around... I picked up some 100% white oak from a local wood dealer. The smoke flavor was awesome, but man, working with 100% wood for your fire is tough, the temp was either too high/low. It dropped constantly.

Lesson learned...
Trying to maintain a temperature with all wood is *TOUGH*

Third time around... finally my fire/smoking technique started to take form. I picked up some nice 100% wood lump charcoal (Royal Oak made in the USA from Walmart for $6 dollars per 10 lbs bag, quite the deal if you ask me). I dumped a solid 1/2 to 3/4 bag in the bottom of my smoker. I started a chimney full of lump and dumped that on top. I have seen this referred to as the minion method - Putting tons of unlit lump on the bottom, with a chimney of lit on top. The coals on top slowly burn down and light the ones under the, giving a nice long even temp. I threw my oak/hickory on top for extra heat/smoke and this worked like a dream. I had 6 hours of constant 225-250 temp with perfect amounts of smoke.

So my question is... can anyone expand/add/advise on my current method of mass amounts of unlit lump, with a chimey of lit lump on touch with the addition of oak/hickory/mesquite/apple, etc wood for the smoke/flavor. Thanks and happy Smokin'!

[Papa Tom]

Welcome jmartis glad you're here. For the very first thing we need to know more about your pit. Is it a commercial unit? If so what kind? If not describe the construction and size.

[JamesB]

Welcome to the Forum!

As Papa Tom mentioned, we need a few more details on your pit. Some pits work better with charcoal or lump and some are better designed as wood burners.

I'll tell ya what I do while we await further info from you. Back in my Brinkman Smoke-N-Pit days, I always used a charcoal briquette coal base and added chunks or small branches for smoke. On my larger offsets, I normally start with a base of charcoal briquettes or lump coal. Once that is going good, I add log splits for the rest of the cook, no more charcoal. I keep a small, hot, clean burning fire at all times. There are going to be spikes and valleys in the temps. It's just part of offset cooking.

[OSD]

Welcome jmartis glad you're here. For the very first thing we need to know more about your pit. Is it a commercial unit? If so what kind? If not describe the construction and size.

This info will help you get the best advise.

In the mean time stop over to the Wanted Poster section and introduce yourself and tell us a little about you.