Cooking with Hickory question

Pstores

Pstores

is Blowin Smoke!
Joined
Apr 3, 2016
Location
Hudson, wi
So today I get a solid great set of coals going. Vents on my Meadow Creek Ts120p insulated firebox open 1 1/4" each. Running about 250-260. When I put in cherry or pecan it burns very nice. Then when I put in hickory, black friggin smoke. So, I open the cook chamber for awhile till it cleans up. But takes some time and I loose a lot of heat. I preheated my splits to the point almost to hot to pickup. And they were about 2x2 or 2x3.... Any helpful hints?
 
I smoke with hickory exclusively and never had that issue. You sure you have hickory? Also, has it been seasoned?
 
The Hickory and Pecan both do it. It is hickory. It's not punky. I put cherry on and it just sails along. Maybe next week I'll open the vents a tad more and keep more coals. It has been seasoned and kiln dried. I am new to stick burning. The first couple runs I had no issues. Then I started getting the dreaded black nasty smoke. Maybe I need a larger bed of coals. Ummmm...... Learning curve....
 
Funny after my first three cooks I thought I really had this down.... Loll.......

Just put on a pecan and cherry coals burning down. And perfect no black smoke... So it's a hickory thing. I measured my vents. Next cook I'll have them right at the same mark as right now
 
I'm not an expert, just an advanced beginner. I have a friend that used to own four Q Joints, another friend that owned one, and a traveling state fair concession cook.

They all used green hickory. I used to buy some of their unused cured and dried for my fireplace
Green. Low and Slow.
 
I am thinking I am putting on to many splits at once. I was adding one pecan, one cherry and one hickory...... Think from now on I'll put one at a time one except at the beginning when I have a my Royal oak charcoal going to get it started and warmed up.
 
I have used hickory as my main or only wood for about 20 years now. I have never seen black smoke from any batch of hickory, under seasoned, over seasoned, big older tree, smaller younger tree. There is something wrong with that wood, if it even is hickory.
 
I don't know if this will help, but I experienced something similar with some oak I was using. The oak was seasoned probably perfectly, still had some moisture in it. I left some inside the firebox to preheat away from the main fire for a good while (also almost to hot to touch). When I put them on I got black smoke. Not tons of black smoke, but it was definitely black.

My theory is that leaving it in the box to preheat that long basically cooked any oils or resins in the wood into a kind of polymer (kind of like when you heat up a thin coat of oil in a cast iron pan to season it).

Once the polymerized oils in the wood start burning, bam, black smoke.

Just a theory theory though. It didn't seem to smoke black as much when I preheated them for a shorter amount of time.
 
Also I have some shag bark hickory I haven't tried yet. Anyone ever cook with that? Wood the black smoke happen if I put to many splits in and it wasn't catching fire right away?
 
if you do not have a good bed of coals the splits will not light fast , maybe you are waiting to long to add the next split and should do it sooner? I have some chunk wood I chop up into real small pieces to help if I wait to long to help light the bigger splits faster .
 
That would make sense if I was adding to much at one time then...... I had a pretty decent bed of coals. But possibly not enough coupled with too much added at one time.
 
Pstores said:
I am thinking I am putting on to many splits at once. I was adding one pecan, one cherry and one hickory...... Think from now on I'll put one at a time one except at the beginning when I have a my Royal oak charcoal going to get it started and warmed up.
Click to expand...
Theres your trouble to much wood at one time cools the coals and restricts the make up air giving incomplete combustion= Black smoke & creosote from a smoldering fire.
 
Thanks that was very helpful....... I didn't have enough coals...... I'll have to try this next time and get a real good bed going.
 
and you do not haft to have Oak like I did to start , I do it just because I can get it cheaper just to get my smoker up to temp . you can use any wood to get the same results and you will get it figured out .
 
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