Smoker issues mid smoke.....help

Get the soaked chunk outta there and start feeding splits, if you don't splits start throwing unsoaked chunks in!

No reason to soak wood.

Or light a chimney of charcoal and dump that it

Splits. Unsoaked. As a matter of fact you should be prewarming them on top of the firebox so they ignite quicker.

Make a bigger fire. More chunks. And definitely don't soak them.

Toss a Dozen dry chunks in there........

Agree that the traditional offset cookers were designed and built to run off wood. Almost all the fire management lore is based off wood splits. I use charcoal too cause I have to watch the kids but it seems like a brief raging split fire will get the bulk of the steel up to temp and THEN the briquettes will keep it moving. It may be that your pit never got fully up to temp

Long ago I ran into that problem on my LyfeTyme, which is essentially the same design. It's counter intuitive, but choke down on both the stack vent and firebox. Do it gradually until your temp rises. What's happening is you have too much air flow and you are actually evacuating the heat. The stack vent has the higgest affect. You'll also use less fuel too. My pit runs a pretty steady 250, once I changed my settings.

Oh, I run a combination of charcoal and splits..

Yes..but your problem is that the OK Joe is not really airtight enough to run just on charcoal. Most smokers that run charcoal with wood chunks are designed on limiting airflow to create a slow burn. My PBC will run 8-10 hours on 3-4 lbs of charcoal.

In your OKJoe you will likely have to keep adding charcoal. Wood will burn through 1-2 full splits per hour and run at 275 or so.

Pitbull said:

Long ago I ran into that problem on my LyfeTyme, which is essentially the same design. It's counter intuitive, but choke down on both the stack vent and firebox. Do it gradually until your temp rises. What's happening is you have too much air flow and you are actually evacuating the heat. The stack vent has the higgest affect. You'll also use less fuel too. My pit runs a pretty steady 250, once I changed my settings.

Oh, I run a combination of charcoal and splits..

Click to expand...

You have my attention. Makes sense the more I think about it. I have a vertical that uses too much charcoal if I run the exhaust wide open.

Being the former owner of an Ok. Joe, I had experienced those same issues. It wasn't until I started using splits that I was able to hold a higher, steadier temp. More dry chunks, another chimney of lit coal's will definitely help, and the advice on the vent settings.

I love my OKJ but it will not run on charcoal. It wasn't designed too. If you add another pile of coal your temp is going to spike high then die down a couple of hours later and then leave your firebox full of ash. It would be great if you could find a source for split wood and learned to feed it. I sometimes start with half a chimney of lump charcoal then add wood and keep an active flame the entire cook. Steady 275-300 temps with nearly invisable sweet smelling thin blue smoke. Always have a great mellow smokey flavor.

Sure (see post 4) that'll do for this cook, but you gotta get splits for future cooks. Stick burners are called stick burners cause they burn sticks, otherwise they be called charcoal burners :thumb:

Leave the exhaust wide open!

Dan_fash,

Before your next cook you really should do some research and watch some videos on how to run an offset smoker. Choking off the heat source is the worst thing you can do as it's going to put out your fire and leave the wood to smolder, rather than burn. You're going to be get a ton of billowing, thick, ashy, white smoke and it's going to leave a bitter and ash flavor on your meat.

For the time being use dry chunks and fully whitened over charcoal, but for your next cook you'll really want to source some proper wood splits. The biggest thing to remember in an offset smoker is that airflow is the most important thing... better to chase a clean burning fire than a perfect temperature. Once you get the hang of cooking with wood splits it will become very easy to adjust your temperature by the size of the wood split you're putting on the fire.

I'm leaving this video here because this guy explains the airflow very well and he gives some very good insight into how to run a clean fire in an offset smoker.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Azfvya6n4Y&t"]How to Manage Your Smoker Fire - YouTube[/ame]

Also here's another video from T-Roy cooks which is good as well.
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS1veMrDOC4&t"]Offset Smoker Fire Management - How To Video - YouTube[/ame]

As said before, don't soak chunks. In the future I suggest keeping a big bag of lump handy. You can feed it directly into the fire without farting around with a chimney. Can do the same thing with Stubbs briquettes but lump starts quicker.