Expert: BBQ Woman - 9/1/2007

Question
I just purchased a BBQ Grillware vertical gas smoker. It is cast iron, has a cast iron woodchip box located over the burner, a water pan, and then the racks. I have cooked several things with it and they all seem to come out ok but the smoker does not smoke very much if at all. After i clean it out each time, the chips are ashed but no smoke.

Every time i see friends smoking, there smoker billows.

Any ideas?

Thanks


Answer
Hi,
When you say that it has cooked several things and they come out ok do they appear to have been smoked or have a smokey flavor to them or do they appear to be just cooked meats?

I am not really familiar with that particular brand of smoker but have seen others that are similar. They tend to hold the smoke in the grill where it should be.

If you are not seeing visible smoke into your meats it might be in your preparation of the wood chips. Wood chips need a good soaking in water before they are to be used on any grill to enhance the flavor of the meat. If they are not soaked enough they will smoke very little and will dry out fast and burn up.  

I personally like to mix up my wood chips purchasing big ones as well as the small chips because the small ones tend to burn up faster than the large ones. This also helps when I cant always be tending the grill so it continues to smoke a long time due to the larger chips taking a longer time to dry out.

I would of suggested you open your vents a little more to allow more oxygen to get to the wood chips but since you had mentioned that your chips are ashed when you clean the grill I am thinking that isn't the problem.

I should also like to add a word of caution. If you use too much smoke it can also drastically change the flavor of the meat. So too much smoke is never a good thing.


In any case just let me know if your meat doesn't appear smoked and what kind of wood chips you are using if my answer doesn't seem to help you and we will go from there finding the problem.

Regards,
Misty