McSpazatron
is one Smokin' Farker
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2015
- Location
- Milwauke...
I got my offset last February. Even though I cooked like crazy over the summer, I would say I'm still learning. About half of my cooks have been using only oak wood (the other half primarily lump charcoal). I've taken all the advice of cutting down splits to manageable sizes to ensure a good small, clean, hot fire. I think I got it down for the most part, if anything, the fire has generally been too clean (compared to the nice smoked flavor I can get from cooking with charcoal and with wood chips in smoking box).
So this last Sunday I decided on impulse to cook some ribs. Went looking for pork spare ribs, but didn't find any that I liked. The last place I checked also did not have spare ribs, but they had Beef Short Plate Ribs instead (capitalized out of due respect). Good problem to have...
It was two in the afternoon when I got home with the goods, so I decided on a hot and fast cook, which I have never done on purpose. I usually cook around 275. This time I decided to cook at around 325-350. I decided on using oak, and I used my usual sized splits, from an "established" batch of oak purchased earlier this year. The oak looked good, nothing odd about the pieces, well seasoned, and not too dry.
Anyway, to make a long story twice as long, I was struggling with thin black sooty smoke for most of the cook. It was not bellowing black smoke or anything like that, but it was a very thin black smoke. It was confirmed when I threw in some polish sausages in the middle of the cook. . The sassages were in there maybe 30 min, but they came out slightly sooted, without the usual golden, slightly shiny, smoke-kissed color that I usually get. They were edible, but not appealing to look at.
As to the particulars of the cook: Throughout the cooking process, the splits caught on fire all the way around within 15 seconds of putting them on the coal bed, and these were not even preheated! They stayed "vigorously" lit when I closed the FB door , I put one or two splits on at the same time about every 20-30min . So it can't be that I was smothering the fire. There was a strong breeze coming out of the smokestack. Airflow could not have been a problem.
As an aside, I did notice this happening once before on previous a cook using wood, and it was when I tried to bump up the temp in the middle of the cook.. Once it got real hot in the firebox, then I started seeing the black smoke. The firebox is insulated if it matters.
I honestly don't know what is going on. I have a theory that maybe the fire is so hot that it makes a type of plastic out of the resins inside the wood, and plastic burns black. The only reason it burned as thin black smoke is due to the high airflow and relatively clean combustion. Is this "plastic resin" theory reasonable? Can a wood fire be too hot for cooking? (I'm talking about too hot as in inside the firebox---the temp in the cook-chamber was fine.) Is it possible to make oak splits get angry at you if you try to push them too hard? Did I discover some sort of "Phase 2 combustion regime" of oak burning?
This is a mystery that I haven't been able to shake since Sunday. Any ideas? Rampant speculation is acceptable if that's all you have. However I will rest easier if a there is a thermodynamic engineer in the house that could shed some light on this.
Oddly enough, the ribs turned out fine. They could have rendered a bit more, but it was 8pm. Not the best batch out of the two other batches I've cooked so far, but still good (they didn't taste sooty, maybe because they sweated the soot off, or I washed it off with the vinegar spritz?, who knows. )
So this last Sunday I decided on impulse to cook some ribs. Went looking for pork spare ribs, but didn't find any that I liked. The last place I checked also did not have spare ribs, but they had Beef Short Plate Ribs instead (capitalized out of due respect). Good problem to have...
It was two in the afternoon when I got home with the goods, so I decided on a hot and fast cook, which I have never done on purpose. I usually cook around 275. This time I decided to cook at around 325-350. I decided on using oak, and I used my usual sized splits, from an "established" batch of oak purchased earlier this year. The oak looked good, nothing odd about the pieces, well seasoned, and not too dry.
Anyway, to make a long story twice as long, I was struggling with thin black sooty smoke for most of the cook. It was not bellowing black smoke or anything like that, but it was a very thin black smoke. It was confirmed when I threw in some polish sausages in the middle of the cook. . The sassages were in there maybe 30 min, but they came out slightly sooted, without the usual golden, slightly shiny, smoke-kissed color that I usually get. They were edible, but not appealing to look at.
As to the particulars of the cook: Throughout the cooking process, the splits caught on fire all the way around within 15 seconds of putting them on the coal bed, and these were not even preheated! They stayed "vigorously" lit when I closed the FB door , I put one or two splits on at the same time about every 20-30min . So it can't be that I was smothering the fire. There was a strong breeze coming out of the smokestack. Airflow could not have been a problem.
As an aside, I did notice this happening once before on previous a cook using wood, and it was when I tried to bump up the temp in the middle of the cook.. Once it got real hot in the firebox, then I started seeing the black smoke. The firebox is insulated if it matters.
I honestly don't know what is going on. I have a theory that maybe the fire is so hot that it makes a type of plastic out of the resins inside the wood, and plastic burns black. The only reason it burned as thin black smoke is due to the high airflow and relatively clean combustion. Is this "plastic resin" theory reasonable? Can a wood fire be too hot for cooking? (I'm talking about too hot as in inside the firebox---the temp in the cook-chamber was fine.) Is it possible to make oak splits get angry at you if you try to push them too hard? Did I discover some sort of "Phase 2 combustion regime" of oak burning?
This is a mystery that I haven't been able to shake since Sunday. Any ideas? Rampant speculation is acceptable if that's all you have. However I will rest easier if a there is a thermodynamic engineer in the house that could shed some light on this.
Oddly enough, the ribs turned out fine. They could have rendered a bit more, but it was 8pm. Not the best batch out of the two other batches I've cooked so far, but still good (they didn't taste sooty, maybe because they sweated the soot off, or I washed it off with the vinegar spritz?, who knows. )
