Fundamental Stickburner Question

Y'all have convinced me to buy / download his book.

It seems to me that all the previous comments are right on. I think for some reason, most offset stick burners like 275°, and temp. swings of 25-30° are not detrimental to the desired result. If temps. get out of control, open the door temporarily-- don't shut off the air supply-- you will get nasty smoke.

Anyway, if you are using a smaller size stick burner, you may find that cutting the sticks into SHORTER pieces helps to keep the fire in the right BTU output range. Franklin and the other 10 foot long oven users throw in huge full logs that would make it impossible to control temps on a backyard unit.

I cut the 16-18" long sticks in half with my miter saw into 8" pieces. Voila, you have added only half the heat of a full size stick and the fire size would make goldilocks very happy-- just right.

In my opinion, it is actually more difficult to control a small offset than a large one. Small mistakes in adding wood add up to larger deltas in temps. on small offsets.

Shagdog said:

I agree with all of the above. Let the smoker run where it's happy. The goal is thin blue to no smoke. I run my stick burner wide open and control my temperature with fire size. The smoke is hardly visable at all. That's what you want. Full combustion. Smoldering a fire will only lead to dirty smoke and food that tastes like an ashtray. Make your fire smaller and let er rip. You want to see your splits flaming, not smoking. As long as you can keep your temps under 3-325 I wouldn't sweat it. Your meat just finishes quicker. 225 isn't a magic smoking number.

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Agree completely, I have a Shirley and run it with vents wide open and control with small hot fire(insulated firebox)

Farnklin? Franklin who?? Ben Farnklin???? Never heard of him

I am a Shirley owner also. It loves to run in the 275-300 rang all day. So easy to operate. As said before, all vents wide open. It is a joy to cook on.

The notion that BBQ needs to be cooked at 225* is, in reality, a myth. Cooking with sticks is much easier to control at 250*, or more, in the usual backyard sized pit. Good clean fires and thin blue smoke are the more important aspects of cooking good BBQ.

I guess the point has been missed altogether. A clean burning fire is the only way.

However, it's the size of that fire the dictates heat,.. not,.. " my cooker likes to run at blah. ... so that's where I run it" You need to work on fire management. You should be able to stick any temp. and hold it for hours with a clean burning fire, then,... you have mastered your fire control. If temp swings plague you and certain temps seem unattainable, try splitting your splits. Or using shorter lengths. Or both. The right size split has everything to do with this. Airflow airflow airflow !! Let the fire breathe and don't try to choke it at all. I run, as stated before, with my FB door wide open and my stack wide open. I am pushing some air boys!

Practice. !! I assure you this works. I would come home, crack a beer, and light a fire. Everyday. Most of the time with no food on. The mission was simple, fire management. No charcoal. Just me and the splits. The result is a true mastering of my fire skills. I have no problems with charcoal, I just don't need it in my stickburner. I also have no problem with how you get said fire lit. Weed burner, paper, lighter fluid,.. that doesn't matter to me. ( within reason )

And it solves the problems of hot spots. With all the airflow there is no pooling of heat at either end of my level cooker. And this is an Old country pecos,.. I can't imagine how easy this would be on a 60 or larger.

But at the end of the day everybody is gonna do their own thing. I just thought I needed to emphasize that you should run your pit, not,.. it run you.

Regards,
Kevin

^^ What he said

Clean burning fire is the key. If you build too big of a fire and have to choke it to bring the temps down you start to get a bad smoke taste instead of a good smoke taste. Part of being able to do this is having a smoker that's built correctly. If your firebox is positioned wrong or your exhaust pipe is in the wrong place, etc it'll make it harder to achieve ideal smoking conditions.

AlwaysSmokey said:

However, it's the size of that fire the dictates heat,.. not,.. " my cooker likes to run at blah. ... so that's where I run it"

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I think the key is, for a given cooker and wood source, you're going to get a pretty consistent temperature. I have an Old Country Pecos and I use those bags of wood you can get at the grocery store. For me, that means a good fire holds right around 300F because the sticks are a bit big for the pit. That's fine, I like cooking at 300F. I could say "my pit likes to run at 300F" but really it's just that my pit with the wood I like to use tends to run there. Sure I could run it at 225 if I got out a hatchet and split the rounds I'm using, but why bother?

One other tip--if you run a fire too hot...who cares? If your rub doesn't have a bunch of sugar in it where you need to keep the temps under 350F or so, just let it ride. I wasn't paying a lot of attention last cook and got up to about 425F with a butt and a fatty in the cooker. You know what I did? Nothing. It was back down to 300F in half an hour when the sticks started to burn out. The great thing about a stick burner is that if the temp is too high, just wait a bit and it'll come back down. Just make sure you don't have a grease fire and you'll probably be fine.

pjtexas1 said:

Isn't it Smitthy's in Lockhart that burns their splits right outside the cooker and lets the draft pull in the heat and smoke? basically we are doing the same thing...letting the fire have all the air it needs.

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You are right-on about Smitty's, the original Kreuz family joint. There was a period of time when I was obsessed with finding a new technology that would replace the archaic methods that were employed by the good-ol'-boys.

I thought they were lost in the 19th century. Why, I thought, would you stand around all day feeding a fire when there were new fangled gadgets that bypassed all that labor?

After eating at places like Smitty's, Kreuz, Mueller's, and other classic Q joints, I realized that it was I that was the lost soul of Q. That was many moons' ago.

I now understand that the Smitty's pit is an example of the purist form of the art that can be found, and their food reflects it. I can't have an open pit in my backyard ( Fire Department), so I think an offset running wide open is as close as I am ever going to get.

What I don't understand is why some do not sense the quality difference in the smoke that is generated in this way, compared to other methods. That sweet smell of the species wood leaving the stack of an open flame leaves behind a taste that can't be duplicated by other methods. Or am I wrong?

DaveAlvarado said:

Sure I could run it at 225 if I got out a hatchet and split the rounds I'm using, but why bother?

One other tip--if you run a fire too hot...who cares? .

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I care.

I shared because my method is solid. There are no special this, or add that...or fab this.. or build that. In fact,.. I recommend you cut the baffle out of that pecos.
It's all about airflow and fire size. I don't care how hot you run. That is your choice. I am talking about the method. Your choice to cook at whatever temp. is exactly that,.. your choice. But my point is,.. run that temp. because you want to,.. not because that's where it lands when you dump a bag of chunks in there and light it on fire.

Fire control brother. Fire control and air is what I'm talking about.

Regards,
Kevin

I think you're missing Dave's point, smokey. And it's a good one. Lighten up is what he's really getting at. Yea you CAN hit this temp or that temp, but it defeats half of what is great about BBQ. It's fun. If you get your smoker up and running at 275, why fight it and fidget with it down to 250? The temp doesn't make that big a difference in the end result as far as taste is concerned. 225 cooked meat vs 325 cooked meat would never be discernible in a side by side taste test. Should you know how to get your smoker to run where you want it? Sure. And most people figure it out with practice. But if your splits happen to be a certain size and you have a habit of building your fires a certain way that leads to temp of 300 most the time, why fight it? Just know that you cook there, crack a beer and let er rip.

Shag, I'm not trying to come off as preachy or anything. Fun is all I have. I'm just sayin you can, without a shadow of a doubt, run at a specific temp. you want with ease. I don't fight anything brother. I manage a fire built to the size of the cooking temp. I need. That's all. If grabbing an axe and splitting a split smaller, or cutting it down shorter is not a person's preference, cool,... Just thought I'd try and help out a brother or two.

Regards,
Kevin

Yeah and Smokey has a good point that maybe not a lot of people realize.

It's one thing to say "build a small, clean fire". It's another thing to understand *how* to do that. When I first started in stick burning, I didn't know. I just knew I had this bag of rounds and splits and that I needed to keep a coal bed going. I didn't realize that if I just split what I had in half I could control my fire more precisely.

My point about running too hot was really to say "don't fiddle, and especially don't close the intake". A clean fire at any temp is more important than an exact temp. Stick burners fluctuate quickly--they spike up when you add wood, and they drop when that wood starts to burn out. If you're targeting 275F and mess up and hit 325F, no biggie. Just wait a little longer to add the next stick. You won't ruin any BBQ by cooking too hot for half an hour. The caveat is if you have a lot of sugar on your meat--if that blackens you can't get rid of that burnt sugar taste so you have to stay under 350F or so. If it gets too hot then, open the cooking chamber door until your fire burns down some.

Oh yeah,.. I agree about not freaking out and having a good time LOL....

I have just been perfecting my fire control so it's been on my brain alot recently. It's really quite exciting.... Having a pit even across the board at a temp. I chose, running nothing but splits.... I guess the nerd in me just needs some buddies to talk shop with.

I'll do a mod thread this weekend on the pecos. Or,... un mod thread as it were...

Thanks for spitballin with me Dave and Shag.

Regards,
Kevin

Many good points made here! A stick burner doesn't HAVE to run at any particular temp, that can be adjusted with the size of the fire and setting of the intake damper or in some cases the firebox door. Apart from good airflow the biggest key to a clean, hot fire is the coal bed, if you have a healthy coal bed and newly added splits quickly combust when they're added then you're also going to have clean smoke as well. It's all about getting to know your pit, knowing how big a fire to build to achieve your desired temps, while maintaining the coal bed and also allowing plenty of airflow through the cooker.:-D

SmittyJonz said:

225 Blows. 275 Rocks.

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+1 on this. 225 takes too long, u can get the same results with almost any kind of meat at 275.

AlwaysSmokey said:

Thanks for spitballin with me Dave and Shag.

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No problem buddy, and good job mastering that fire!

You should come to the TX mega bash this October, would love to cook with you.

Yeah,.. I'd like to. The spot they had picked out was only about 2 hours away from the house. I think it would be a good time. Be nice to get out of the house and off the land for awhile. Seems like all I do is work, then go home and work... lol
The last time the wife and I had no kids on a Friday night,.... we went to the grocery store. And loved it.. lol... no kids begging for sugary stuff or toys etc....

Don't get me wrong,.. we like to have fun,. we just don't get out much anymore. Everyone gathers at our place. Company all the time. The wife is always suggesting I go have fun,.. but I'm just fine sittin at home drinkin beer and pokin fires. So I'm sure she'll have my bag packed for me. lol So yeah,.. you can count me in!

Regards,
Kevin

IMO everything that everyone said is correct.....for them. I leave my FB door open about an inch in addition to both dampers. I still have a self-inflicted fire problem. My feeble brain can't somehow realize that a fire needs to complete a cook. My fire usually begins to die down too soon at the end of a cook and I need to remember to keep it a little longer. Thank goodness the meat is usually mostly done and just takes a few minutes to finish.