4 cooks and food taste burnt

Oh heck, if Momma is not happy then no one is gonna be happy...so we'll all try to get you back in good grazes.

2 oz's of hickory on chicken is just wrong, so I'd guess you have black/bitter tasting chicken there. On the chicken, what kind are you cooking?...whole, breasts, thighs, leg quarters?

Maybe we outta do these one at a time. Is the apple wood in chunks and where did you buy them?

Are you using one big chunk or a few small ones?

Other questions - was the meat dry or moist? Was the meat good or is the skin the issue? Have you verified the operating temp of the pit with another thermometer? How long did you cook each of the products above? What temp did you cook them at? How much did they weigh?

We (or Cookshack) will get you lined out...

Nordy

pit for chicken was 250°. ribs was 250°. butt temp was set for 225°. everything coming out is very very dark brown and taste from everything is very icky. taste like out of a burning house. i am trying to love my smokette but family doesnt want anything out of it anymore.

Something just don't add up, I'm not questioning your results, but just trying to figure where the problem is.

While the PB will come out dark, 2oz's of apple wood shouldn't give it much of a smoke taste, especially after pulling and mixing it all together.

I'm wondering about the wood and if there is not a problem with it? Did you get it from CS or buy it somewhere else? Does it burn all the way up? What kind/color of smoke comes out of the exhaust hole, say 1-2 hrs after starting the smoker?

2oz's of wood on chicken is plenty, but on ribs and butts it shouldn't have the burnt house odor.

How big was the butt and how long it cook and at what internal temp did you pull, just trying to figure out if the smoker is cooking/reading the correct temps.

the hickory came from cookshack. the apple wood is from bbq galore and it weber product. the wood is always ash when i clean my wood box out. 7 lb butt pulled at 195°. rested for 2 hours and pulled. i'm really trying hard to love my smokette but the family isn't liking it.

Understood!

Did you say about 14 hrs on the cook time?

Are you weighing the wood or guess at weight? Just some idea on size....inches X inches

i am weighing the wood. butt cooked just over 12 hours.

I have never cooked on an electric unit.

But if your having too much smoke flavor, I would back down on how much wood your putting in till your flavor is where you want it.

I have found hickory can be very bitter some times.

i am using less wood than whats called for. family is not happy w/ my purchase at all.

I am very new to this (smoking and the SM025) as well, so just some thoughts from a fellow newbie. You said you only put salt and pepper on the chicken, I don't think it should have been that dark. I had a rub on my chicken with sugar and cooked it at 300 the whole time with Apple wood the first time I did chicken and that didn't come out dark. Most of the time if you have a rub with sugar that is the component that makes it darker. I would definately skip the Hickory for Chicken, as what I read on here, chicken takes in a lot of smoke flavor. 2oz sounds like a good weight, I think I used around that (the chicken did come out very smokey). Ribs for me usually get real dark, but then again, that's the sugar/spices in the rub, pork butt as well, but could easily have taken 6oz of apple without a problem. Has your family had anything to compare their experience to, say another smoke restaurants food. That is sad to me that they are so unhappy with the food, and I bet you feel that way too, I know I would. I don't know if the experts would recommend this, but maybe clean the sides of the smoker, just in case it was the wood, just to get the remainder of the smoke out of it. I agree with Randy E about backing down on the wood, perhaps you have to start from almost 1/2 to 1 oz to see if they like it and then add a tiny bit at a time each smoke to see where your family's threshold is??? Good Luck, Vicki

The first thing that comes to mind for me is: Have you verified the temperatures inside the smoker with a different thermometer? I really don't see anything wrong with what you are doing as far as the wood. I am just wondering if things inside the smoker are a lot hotter than what the controls on the smoker are showing.

i have 3 other pellet smokers and they love the food that comes off of them. everything is really dark and the flavor is not good at all from the smokette. i haven't check with another thermometer yet. i will do that tonight. i want to love my smokette but it is hard so far.

And you're not soaking the wood, but using it dry?

Only thing I can think of is the wood is catching fire instead of smoldering. I've had that happen to me a couple of times and now that I think about it, it did sort of have a burnt taste to it. Try putting the wood in a different part of the fire box and see what happens.

Your problem is definitely the exception and not the rule. I just finished smoking a 5.5lb. bird for dinner in my 020. Some garlic powder & Canadian seasoning, 1.2oz. chunk of orange wood. Smoked for about 1 1/2 hrs at 250. Then finished up in a 400 degree oven to crisp up the skin. Juicy, nice smoke flavor and nice crisp skin.

Had same issues way back when I first bought mine. Make sure your wood doesn't have bark on it. Hope I don't get hung here but.....Cookshacks wood they send with their smokers isn't that green. I learned that the hard way as well. Old wood = soot.

Also no foil on top of the fire box will make some funky drip burnings.

Also since its new did you wipe down the whole inside of the cooker? There may be oils on the metal from production that will smell on the first run as well.

Did you Burn it in for a few hours with no food in it?

How much black buildup is there on the inside?

It took me a while to get it where it needed to be for what it was.

I still think they are a hell of a prime rib oven!

Since those small units hold so much moisture (because I think it needs more vent) bad wood equals a smoke lacquer on everything...

Try a whole chicken with nothing but the heating element. No wood. and see what you get.

I saw Pags had posted this video on another post.

Pay attention to what he says at the 6:00 minute mark

SMoker Overview

I have bark on all my wood. Apple that just came from cookshack and apple and mesquit that is over two years old kept in my garage with no aigns of mold etc. or i wouldnt use it, but they all seem to work fine with no adverse reactions in the smoker??? This is a tough one to figure out.

I use wood with bark and without...can't tell the difference.

On chicken, if you don't use butter soaked cheesecloth after the first 45-60 minutes, you could very well wind up with very dark and heavy tasting skin.

I can't figure out the rib and butt problem. Is this your very first smoker? Are you using dry wood...not wood you soaked in water?

I see you have pellet grills/smokers! I have to agree with Randy E, you are getting way too much smoke for what you and your family is accustom to.

You will need to use smaller amounts of wood, on chicken one small golf ball size of apple and cook on high temp(300). On ribs use two small golf ball size and 250* will work.

The product coming out of the CS will not have a smoke ring, so your gonna have a darker product as opposed to your pellet grills, BUT that should not effect the taste of the product.

i havent given up yet. i will try what has been said here and give the smokette some more time.

sounds like too much wood to me. I am notorious for over-smoking whenever I got a new off-set pit. I just used two small chunks for my entire brisket cook yesterday. One chunk was burned to ash and the other was charred black and I had plenty of smoke flavor. Seems to me it is easy to over-smoke with these types of units. I played it safe and didn't attempt to chop up the wood I had when I got my SM025. I ordered the mini-chunks that are Cookshack sized( I think I saw them on the CS site) and you should have no more wood worries.
I don't think I will ever use more than -2- 2oz pcs of wood at one time......

well, this morning i fire up my smokette with a maverick 732 probe. amazing. smokette reads 225°. maverick read 225°. dead on perfect. going to costco this morning. chicken, ribs and some steak. i am going to use 1/2 the wood. instead of 2 oz of apple i will use 1 oz. the only thing i can think of is that my pellet grills dont give this much smoke out although they but out alot of smoke the smokette really puts out smoke in a small area. not given up yet. the wood in the smoke box everytime is ash. just white ash. good right? i will try putting the wood in a different spot in the woodbox to see if that makes a difference. i'm trying. oh, my coil is not level if that matters. the right side is higher than the left side. i called cookshack last week and the gentleman i was talking to said that it shouldnt make a difference. oh pags, the wood is bone dry.

The coil on my SM025 came exactly as yours did. Someone on here mentioned that you can gently bend it up on one side so that it is all touching the box as u put it in. But they suggest that only if someone is not getting a good burn on their wood. Mine turns to white ash just as you said yours does and that is a good thing, that means it is burning just fine, no need to adjust the coil. I hope you enjoy your next attempt and your family loves it!

I am gonna try Pags trick with the butter soaked cheese cloth as my chicken skin was heavily smoked, even with the 2oz of wood, but the meat was tasty!

Vicki

Hey
I've been reading the help you are getting and can tell you the only thing I would try is like they have been telling you, cut back way back on the wood and work up on amount. I love lots of smoke but have way over smoked in my cs. I feel I have it figured out now and so do my friends who enjoy the food.You get it handeled you will love your smoker! Hang in there

ok, well putting a chicken in at 300°. in a pre-heated smokette or a cold smokette? going to cook until chicken reaches 160°. using only 1 oz of apple wood. will let you know.

If you want the skin on your chicken to not be "dark" you will need to cover it with butter soaked cheesecloth.

This is what chicken will look like in a 025 without it. Skin will not be great but meat should be really good.


Now that it's seasoned well, I don't even put wood in my 020 when cooking chicken... still turns out smokey and good!

Nordy

As others have said. Chicken takes on a lot of smoke flavor. I also like to run the smoker with the wood for a while before putting the food in. I have a different model than you, so your results may vary. I usually run it about an hour and the chunk(s) of wood are well on their way to a nice piece of charcoal. Still get plenty of smoke flavor, just different than if I put the food in right away. When you get it dialed in, your family will be very happy with the results.

Smoke025:

I am just wondering how your latest cook went? I talked to Cookshack a week or so ago, and got a couple of questions answered. My fist couple of smokes in the new SM-045 I had the "Big Bang". Actually I had 1 "Big Bang", and a couple of bangs that sounded like a large bottle rocket going off. Sort of a whish-bang. Cookshack said that this was caused by using too much wood in the smoker. The first time was with a turkey. I had 1 piece of Hickory, and 2 pieces of apple wood in the box. I actually cooked 2 turkeys, but since they had to be done several hours apart, I did the first one in the 045, and then started the second in the old 009, and once I had the smoke on it, I moved it to the 045. Both of them turned out great, and even with over loading the smoker with wood, they had a nice smokey flavor to them (not over powering, and definatley not burnt tasting). One of the other things that Cookshack told me was, the digital smokers have a default setting. When you start your smoker, this default setting overrides whatever temp setting you have entered for the first 20 minutes. They said they do this so that the smoke starts earlier, and it helps get the temp up in the smoker. The problem I had was I would turn the smoker off, while doing something to the meat, and then turn it back on when I was done. The smoker would go into the default mode, and even though I had the temp set for 140 degrees, the default ran the smoker at 250-300 degrees for 20 minutes. I over cooked a Prime Rib because I didn't know about this default. The simple answer is; don't turn off the smoker while you are tending to the meat.

Idaho, thanks for posting, good point about how it runs initially.

Now, about the big bang...

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Mike:
... Cookshack said that this was caused by using too much wood in the smoker. ...

Not sure who said that at CS but I remember that wasn't what Stuart said some time ago. I'll have to go look up the thread for Big Bang.

Here is one reply that explains it well. Has to do more with oxygen supply than anything else.

quote:

Originally posted by Smokenque:
There was a good description of a "bang" by a fireman on either this forum or one of the others I've signed up for.

It might have to do with partially burned fuel that is in the atmosphere of the smoker. This, as I understand, is early on in the smoke.

The inside of the smoker is controlled in how much oxygen is allowed inside, creating a lot of smoke rather than fire. I've had this inadvertently happen when I opened the box early on, like about the 30 minutes that jimbie mentioned. That inrush of oxygen, reacting with the rich smoke caused the wood to ignite and created mini fireball. I only cracked the door and after the flash, boom.. the door was sucked closed.

While I don't know the technicalities of it.. there can be a mini explosion that you might not hear when grease or smoke ignites causing a big puff. When that is finished, fresh oxygen filled air is pulled in the holes to replace that air that expanded and blew out the holes and gaps around the door. That large amount of oxygen can cause a bigger bang or pop.

Most incidences I've heard about are usually in the early stages of a new smoker. After a bit of time, the smoke residue seals enough of the gaps to minimize the intrusion of air, other than was designed into the unit.

This is good to know, like when we're trying to lower the temp in the smoker. Don't turn it off, but lower the therm...maybe dump heat by opening the door.

That makes sense cause I've really loaded my woodbox a couple times with no bang.

One other thing that I've wondered about. We all had problems getting smoke on our smokers a couple years ago and they told us to raise the element to touch the box.

Well it sounds like the newer smokers have a different wood box(no holes), I wonder if that hasn't improved the smoking of the CS and now they are getting more smoke earlier in the process? Just a thought!

Smokin: I am just telling you what Cookshack told me about the "Big Bang". I am a retired Firefighter, once I read what you wrote, and what cookshack told me, I think the "Big Bang" is either a smoke explosion, or a back draft. I really think that both of these conditions are related. You have a smoldering fire, that isn't getting enough oxygen to free burn. Sometimes the temperatures inside a structure in this situation will reach 2000 degrees. One of the signs of a structure that is in a back draft condition, is you will actually see the building breath. The smoke will pour out of every crack in the structure, and then it will take a breath, and the smoke will get sucked back in (I haven't watched the new smoker to see if this is happening). The smoke explosion or back draft happens when the structure takes a really deep breath, or a door or window gets opened. You get a rush of oxygen, and all of the super heated fuel/smoke ignites or explodes. The solution for the fire fighter is to cut a big hole in the roof of the structure, and let the heat and smoke out. This is counter productive for us smokers. The answer is to do like Cookshack told me, and reduce the amount of fuel that is smoldering in the smoker.

sorry to say but the smokette is going back. family doesnt like the way the food taste that come out of it. family not happy and the wife really unhappy. if shes not happy no one is.

I am sorry to hear that.

sorry to hear that Smoke025. I know what you mean about the wife. Trying to figure these things out, and do a balancing act between "it's too rare, it's to spicey, not enough smoke, too much smoke", etc. is a problem. You have to keep the Wife happy, or no one is happy.

What kind of pellet grills do you have? Only electric grill I ever cooked on was a Masterbuilt bullet. It was awful hard to control. Since I went pellet, my family won't eat my UDS offerings. Too smoky, they say. Guess I spoiled them, cause I like a good, smoky pork meal off the barrel, every once in a while, next day BBQ burp and all!

OD

i use mak grills. i love them.

Well, 4 cooks isn't really enough to judge a product, but the great thing is, unlike a lot of companies, CS does have a $$$$ back guarantee so certainly if the family isn't happy, go for it.

It does happen. Every product isn't to everybody's taste.

family has to be happy first.