BBQ Guru for Full Time Stick Burner?

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Greg60525

Knows what a fatty is.
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I was thinking about using a BBQ Guru on a Gator Pit BMS 48" long x 24"dia. offset. I burn all wood, except for a load of charcoal to get it going. I'm concerned that it wouldn't work well for a wood fire because it would throttle the air too much, resulting in dirty smoke, or just too much smoke.

Does anyone have any experience with using one of these to control a wood fire? Comments.

Thanks,
 
sometimes I feel like am "still wondering around with a bag a match light!
what is the BBQ GURU?
 
Radical Rick said:
sometimes I feel like am "still wondering around with a bag a match light!
what is the BBQ GURU?
Click to expand...


Now that is funny. A BBQ Guru helps regulate your pit temps. I do not have one, so I will let someone who has one give you the intimate details of the contraption.
 
Radical Rick said:
sometimes I feel like am "still wondering around with a bag a match light!
what is the BBQ GURU?
Click to expand...
The Guru is a pit controller. Utilizing a fan and temperature probe located usually on the grid, you can control the temperature of the fire electronically. Say you want the food grate to be 250. You tell the guru that and it controls your fire through pulses of air to keep it rock steady at 250 until you are out of fuel. They usually have an adapter that fits over the air intake of a pit.
There is another one called the Stoker which has a bit more bells and whistles. I use that one and have gone 30 hours on one load of fuel in my egg.

Not whether or not you can fit this onto your pit is debatable. Don't know your firebox design. Or that you used pure logs.
Give the Guru folks a shout.

www.thebbqguru.com
 
Greg60525 said:
I was thinking about using a BBQ Guru on a Gator Pit BMS 48" long x 24"dia. offset. I burn all wood, except for a load of charcoal to get it going. I'm concerned that it wouldn't work well for a wood fire because it would throttle the air too much, resulting in dirty smoke, or just too much smoke.

Does anyone have any experience with using one of these to control a wood fire? Comments.

Thanks,
Click to expand...

Your concern is well-founded. You'll have no problem adapting it to your pit, and it will control temperature perfectly. But with wood as a fuel, your meat will end up covered with creosote.
 
Karubecue said:
Your concern is well-founded. You'll have no problem adapting it to your pit, and it will control temperature perfectly. But with wood as a fuel, your meat will end up covered with creosote.
Click to expand...
I'm not using one, but if you change over to a mix of charcoal (for heat) & wood (for flavor) I think you should be ok...
 
Karubecue said:
Your concern is well-founded. You'll have no problem adapting it to your pit, and it will control temperature perfectly. But with wood as a fuel, your meat will end up covered with creosote.
Click to expand...


:confused::confused::confused: Can you elaborate on that??

I know a few folks that use stokers on large offsets and never get the nasties... initial burn is a chimney of charcoal, and its all logs after that.
 
BBQchef33 said:
:confused::confused::confused: Can you elaborate on that??

I know a few folks that use stokers on large offsets and never get the nasties... initial burn is a chimney of charcoal, and its all logs after that.
Click to expand...

It depends on how great the mismatch is between the amount of wood in the fire and the power required to keep the pit at the target temperature. Let's say your target pit temp is 225F. If you have a smallish fire that would produce a pit temp of 240F with unrestricted air, you're not choking it too bad and will have enough air to burn most of the smoke. If you overload the firebox with a big fuel load that would make the pit 350F with unrestricted air, you are seriously choking the fire and will fail to burn most of the smoke and get lots of creosote.
 
Karubecue sorry to disagree with your logic on this but I just don't think it will fly. No mater how much fuel you load, unless you are seriously blocking the air movement by blocking the entrance to the cooking chamber with an overload of wood, then you should be able to control your temp with your normal draft device without choking the fire. The other way to choke the fire would to be closing your exaust down to much, or loading way to much meat in the cooking chamber thus restricting air flow.

The only difference would be with the guru or stoker, you go in and have a beer, take a nape, run to the store, watch a game. With just your normal intake adjustments you can be tied to your cooker during the entire cook some more than others. I have a guru myself and love it.
Dave
 
Time to dust this off on Stick Burners and the Stoker/Gurus and what happens when you push the limits of these things.

Popdaddy Video Archives

Test A... ridiculous Amounts of wood and the Stoker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU1nBge9yJk&feature=channel_page

Test B - Results and Continuation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2P9VWfVp9Q&feature=channel_page

And the VIDEO with over 12,000 views... Test IV stoker test with a firebox full of 43 LBS of coal.... will it run away?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SotI-UzYGn4&feature=channel_page
 
If anyone has pictures of offsets being used with a guru or stoker could you post them along with your experiences, good or bad.
I would think that you could use one with a charcoal basket to control temps, not sure, but would like to learn more.
jon
 
Divemaster said:
I'm not using one, but if you change over to a mix of charcoal (for heat) & wood (for flavor) I think you should be ok...
Click to expand...

That depends on the Smoker really. I use half a bag to save time on the coals and wood entirely the rest of the way on both the Meat Mamma and the Brazos... I use the stoker with the 25 cfm (although the Brazos doesn't really need it)

One moment on Gurus Blower versus the Stoker's... both are the same CFM (and I advise their high output for stick burners plus a air delivery management system to prevent core outs) but the stokers 25CFM blower is less restricted inside than then Guru (unless they have fixed it.)

Point is on this if you have your air coming in at one place only then the fire works efficently ONLY when its next to that area... so if it burns away from that area, the air coming in is further and thus harder to oxegenate the embers.

This should explain what I am talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVYTVn69vQs&feature=channel_page


No Smoke discernible throughout most of the smoke and thin blue only when I pop a log on.

I don't want to say it depends on the pitmaster (assuming they follow simple rules shown in the WOOD packed Video [above] on wood selection for best case scenario) necessarily because pits are so different.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Mo-Dave said:
Karubecue sorry to disagree with your logic on this but I just don't think it will fly. No mater how much fuel you load, unless you are seriously blocking the air movement by blocking the entrance to the cooking chamber with an overload of wood, then you should be able to control your temp with your normal draft device without choking the fire. The other way to choke the fire would to be closing your exaust down to much, or loading way to much meat in the cooking chamber thus restricting air flow.

The only difference would be with the guru or stoker, you go in and have a beer, take a nape, run to the store, watch a game. With just your normal intake adjustments you can be tied to your cooker during the entire cook some more than others. I have a guru myself and love it.
Dave
Click to expand...

barbefunkoramaque's videos nail this pretty solidly. He jams the FB with wood and turns over control to the stoker. For about 2 hours the smoke is nasty, then it clears up. The only thing missing from the video is a few shots in the FB during that time. What you would have seen at the 2 hour point is a pile of charcoal where the wood used to be. During that 2 hour period, the wood heated up and off-gassed all the volatiles as smoke. That is how charcoal is made. Since there wasn't enough air to burn the smoke (the fan was off for most of this time), the unburned smoke came out the stack. It would have ruined any meat in the cookbox during this period, unless you like eating (and later discharging) creosote.

These control systems work by limiting air to the fire. When the fan turns off, power and temps go down. This by definition is choking the fire, because the wood is smoking just as much after the fan goes off as it was before the fan goes off. The smoke production is a function of log temperature.
 
Yes so in essence anyone saying that using nothing but wood with the stoker or GURU in a stick burner would lead to heavily smoked meat IS DEAD WRONG.

The experiment in the video was for the sole purpose of demonstrating that the stoker COULD run a stick burner. After 2 or so hours if meat had of been on there (as it has been with the nearly 16 TONS of meat I have cooked since then) there was no smoke and only the stoker provided the air.

I would have to ask someone, would they put meat in a pit and THEN start the fire? No, why? Nasty meat. So please, don't anyone come off with a silly conclusion that the smoky 2 and a half hours while the stoker got the ridiculous amount if wood smoke free is a typical case for me.

I think between gas, air, logs and charcoal at first I get a managable bed of coals in 30 minutes and a pit perfect for meat. But this video was not about that.

I took My smoker, packed it with wood FAR BEYOND REASON AND SANITY, to show that the 25CFM blower could keep up.

No one does this. Unless they have lost their freaking mind! LOL

So back to reality.. the use of the stoker as far as air aspiration follows the same rules as leaving your air damper in a certain position.

A pitmaster that properly makes sure he places the proper sized logs on the fire, that have been properly preheated, over a proper amount of coals that have not been allowed to go out, at the proper time, will have little problems with smoky meat.

You don't have to follow all these rules (Heck I use full barked logs of Post Oak now) and have no problem with making thin smoke or none at all...
 
Another reason I did this video experiment was... how long would the stoker allow me to leave the pit untended with nothing but wood.

Results... Were.... longer than not having a stoker.

Not as long as I theorized because of limitations of the bad smoke when I cranked it up.

I had much more luck later setting the stoker to 400 the first hour which really heated up the log mass then loaded the meat and set it for 265. I mention that in the video that if I had to do it all over again I would have pumped up the air at first.

Coal lets me leave for longer... I don't add it all at once, I damper off the firebox to chamber valve (which mst BOX stick burners do not have) and load a bit... then a bit more, then a bit more then open up the chamber and go away for four hours. I do that a lot.

Sticks a little less maybe three hours (not in winter) and you come back with a properly heated smoke chamber but like one little log left in the firebox and the fan on continuously.

Since my Stoker gives me a graph on my Blackberry I know I need to call somebody or head home, Then I have a set of progressively sized wood peices to get the fire up again with minimal smoke.

I can say this... minimal white smoke is my secret to people loving my BBQ. If the temp hits 320 accidentally (left a valve open or something) fret not....but see that white or thick blue smoke and I panic
 
barbefunkoramaque said:
Yes so in essence anyone saying that using nothing but wood with the stoker or GURU in a stick burner would lead to heavily smoked meat IS DEAD WRONG.

The experiment in the video was for the sole purpose of demonstrating that the stoker COULD run a stick burner. After 2 or so hours if meat had of been on there (as it has been with the nearly 16 TONS of meat I have cooked since then) there was no smoke and only the stoker provided the air.

I would have to ask someone, would they put meat in a pit and THEN start the fire? No, why? Nasty meat. So please, don't anyone come off with a silly conclusion that the smoky 2 and a half hours while the stoker got the ridiculous amount if wood smoke free is a typical case for me.

I think between gas, air, logs and charcoal at first I get a managable bed of coals in 30 minutes and a pit perfect for meat. But this video was not about that.

I took My smoker, packed it with wood FAR BEYOND REASON AND SANITY, to show that the 25CFM blower could keep up.

No one does this. Unless they have lost their freaking mind! LOL

So back to reality.. the use of the stoker as far as air aspiration follows the same rules as leaving your air damper in a certain position.

A pitmaster that properly makes sure he places the proper sized logs on the fire, that have been properly preheated, over a proper amount of coals that have not been allowed to go out, at the proper time, will have little problems with smoky meat.

You don't have to follow all these rules (Heck I use full barked logs of Post Oak now) and have no problem with making thin smoke or none at all...
Click to expand...

What the video clearly demonstrates is that such a device CANNOT produce quality smoke if (1) wood is used as the fuel AND (2) the mismatch between the fuel load and the cooker's heat requirement is large.

At the 2-hour point you didn't have a stickburner anymore. It was a charcoal burner at that point.
 
If I read your response correctly... I didn't realize it was you that said wood would make meat creosote ridden. If not PM me to get it straight.

Turning Wood into coal is what we stickburners do. I used to use coal throughout the smoke but stopped as I became more proficient with the stoker. I had not used charcoal at all in the 26 years of BBQing everywhere from Kreuz to Angleos the Funkotorium.

Turning Wood into Coals without Creosoting the meat is what I do.

You Load 16 Tons (in a year) what do ya get?

Just so everyone can get it clear... the STOKER IF, PROPERLY RUN AND COUPLED TO A PROPERLY LOADED FIREBOX WILL TURN STICKS INTO CHARCOAL... WHICH... PRETTY MUCH IS THE PROCESS WE ALL USE WHEN RUNNING MEDIUM (800 TO 4000 lb STICK BURNERS).

It does not exclude the need for proper fire knowledge.

I say that from 16 tons of meat and many many cords of experience on pits ranging from small langs to Oylers to 10,000 lbs units.

Karubecue said:
What the video clearly demonstrates is that such a device CANNOT produce quality smoke if (1) wood is used as the fuel AND (2) the mismatch between the fuel load and the cooker's heat requirement is large.

At the 2-hour point you didn't have a stickburner anymore. It was a charcoal burner at that point.
Click to expand...
 
Barbefunkoramaque,
Are you using the stoker on the new Brazos pit?
Would there be any advantages to using it on this style firebox
or is it too much trouble for the gains made?
It seems like it would be nice to monitor from inside the house, and extended burn times would be nice.
jon
 
Karubecue said:
What the video clearly demonstrates is that such a device CANNOT produce quality smoke if (1) wood is used as the fuel AND (2) the mismatch between the fuel load and the cooker's heat requirement is large.

At the 2-hour point you didn't have a stickburner anymore. It was a charcoal burner at that point.
Click to expand...

This has made me realize some people may need a video lesson on how to build and manage a good fire.

To reiterate the PROPER conclusion of the video From its maker, the Stoker is a robust fire management tool for those that can properly build maintain a fire. If you have trouble doing this on your smoker use coal as a heat source.

But many of us "in the Know" can make a very good fire from sticks alone with little creosote build up.

As you become more proficient with your smoker... you can cut coal out entirely.

I tried in the video to make several comments that this was not how you load a firebox, including the phrase "packing it like a dumbass" but if you skip over parts you may come to the conclusion that this would be how you properly load the box... you would have to skip A LOT but its in there in the first few seconds.

For those of you that put the meat in the smoker and then build the fire and close it up (as karabu may be suggesting)... you may want to stop that.
 
You are right on...

The brazos has problems other than the fire. it has cool spots and hot spots... big deal, right?, until you pack it with 30 or so briskets then you have to make some choices. But its no big deal.

But I like a minimum of shift (opening the pit) and minium of smoke.

I smoke hotter than most as I target the Blacks, Kreuz, Mueller Style. The Brazo's "Nature" is about 250 at its hottest. It has too large a damper and its in one area. This is why some pits now have more dampers these days in other areas on the firebox. Benefit of the large damper is I can see from 30 feet what the fire is doing. Kinda cool.

Disadvantage... wind shift and you have a different smoker.

It would be better to close/open say one vent facing the wind and open/close another thats not instead of shifting your pit.

I used it again with the stoker and got less smoke as I use the stoker to pump it up to 325 with little smoke. When you rely on fire size to control the temp alone (like I did for many years) its a hassle and smoke can get away.

The main reason I dug the stoker on the Brazos was the ability to sit at moms or inside the church (or feesibly in another country) and know what my pit is doing. I could even know what the internals are if I want but I use feel still. The algorithums that Amir set up for the Stoker Log pop that fan on and off slightly before its needed. It also lets you know BEFORE CORE OUT is immiment, when to put fuel on. This is a plus when your attention is call for other things, which catering often does.

jonboy said:
Barbefunkoramaque,
Are you using the stoker on the new Brazos pit?
Would there be any advantages to using it on this style firebox
or is it too much trouble for the gains made?
It seems like it would be nice to monitor from inside the house, and extended burn times would be nice.
jon
Click to expand...
 
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