White smoke billowed out during first hour. Opened door to add another shelf with ribs. Now no smoke is visible from the chimney. Is this normal? Should there be a lot of smoke the entire 4-5 hours of cooking time?
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Welcome aboard Jerry.
An almost blue-clear smoke is a good thing. There's been many discussions on this subject in the past. Once you get familiar with the forums, you can use the "find" feature to search out topics such as this one. For instance, I typed "white smoke" into the find text box and came back with several threads such as THIS one.
An almost blue-clear smoke is a good thing. There's been many discussions on this subject in the past. Once you get familiar with the forums, you can use the "find" feature to search out topics such as this one. For instance, I typed "white smoke" into the find text box and came back with several threads such as THIS one.
Yes, heavy smoke during the first hour or less is normal, followed by a thinner smoke. You don't need and probably don't really want the heavy smoke the whole time. I like it best when the smoke is thin. I have never yet had anything come out of my Amerique that I thought was under-smoked.
Sometimes it can look like no smoke is visible when it is actually there. Shade the smoke hole and shine a flashlight across it.
Of course, if you put very little wood in the box, which you might do if you don't want a heavy smoke flavor, then it could entirely burn up. How much you use is a matter of taste.
On really long smokes, like 15 to 20 hours for pork butt or brisket, a full 6 or 7 ounce load of wood will burn up after 6 or 8 hours. I don't add any more wood at that point because I know from experience that the meat will be plenty smokey already.
Sometimes it can look like no smoke is visible when it is actually there. Shade the smoke hole and shine a flashlight across it.
Of course, if you put very little wood in the box, which you might do if you don't want a heavy smoke flavor, then it could entirely burn up. How much you use is a matter of taste.
On really long smokes, like 15 to 20 hours for pork butt or brisket, a full 6 or 7 ounce load of wood will burn up after 6 or 8 hours. I don't add any more wood at that point because I know from experience that the meat will be plenty smokey already.