Reply to "Fire in woodbox?"

My words were actually quite kind. When someone offers you correct information and you ignore it, there is always the possibility that someone else might think you need to be shocked back into reality. I shocked gently. It's always best to learn to do something the right way before you start improvising without some kind of baseline. A simple task can be broken down into many, many separate sub tasks so that it can be taught, or it can be made hopelessly complex through the addition of layers of complexity that have no bearing on the final product.

The beer can approach won't hurt anything, it's just an added layer and a big waste in a CS. It really helps to have a reason for doing something, rather than just doing it because you read it on another forum or you just thought it sounded cool. Beer can chicken was designed to keep chicken moist in a hotter, dryer grill or oven environment. The CS is super moist and usually doesn't get hot enough to boil the beer and give off steam. Even if it did, you'd be adding water where it isn't needed. Kind of like having a shower head mounted on the wall of your swimming pool, two feet under water. But the chips I get. You enjoy the taste of creosote and the challenge of fighting the occasional fire in your smoker, and both these are completely a matter of choice. You may find the process and the smoke from chunks to be boring in comparison.