Smoke and Temp Concerns/HoldSmoke

I too was concerned about a lack of smokiness in my foods. But, I have come to learn that if you start at 180 for a few hours and then bump the temp up, you will get better smoke depth. The type of pellets MATTERS...And Careful, you can get a drying effect to your food though if you did this overnight at 180. Almost like a tough skin on your meat. I did not experience any probs running at 170. Im not sure what you mean about a holdsmoke feature. Can you post a pic so I can see if there is a change to the control panel? There is a way to make to supplement the FEC with additional smoke and yet not add excessive temps. A litle contraption called the "A-Maze-N Pellet smoker"...worked very well but read my post on it.

Hello Blue Cloud,

Yes, I read a lot of your post and did see the one about the "A-Maz-N-Pellet smoker" and so I plan to get one...but I can't get it in time before the party.

I have not yet come across any info in regard to the drying effect and it makes sense so thanks for that tip

I have the new FEC 100, just got it so no pics yet but I meant to type the HOLD TEMP feature. I read some advise to start the butts at 180 for 6-8 hours and set the HOLDTEMP at 225. This will allow more smoke during the slow cook throughout the night and the HOLDTEMP will bump up the temp in the AM to 225 so I don't have to worry about it..

My first two smokes I was using the Hickory pellets from CS but I also have some BBQrs Delight Peach pellets: http://bbqrsdelight.com/pellet-fuel/
I plan to use for my butts.

I guess my new plan of attack will be to avoid the drying effect you mentioned, will be to start off the first 2 hours of slow smoking at 170/180, before bed I will bump up to 205 and in the morning bump up again to 225 until it is done.

I hope this works. I will have to remember to take notes of what I do and post some pics!


Thanks for your advice!

HOLD TEMP is a two stage process.

Set your cooking temp at 180 (or whatever) and you're cooking time at however long you want.

THEN

Set your hold temp at the higher temp you want to cook at. When it goes to hold, it will bump the temp up to whatever you want.

My advise.

NEVER go with an untested method for a party and leave it alone. You need to watch it somewhat. WILL you have a problem? don't know. Most owners don't. What you see are posts from people with issues, you don't see the posts from people that don't have an issue.

Until you test your smoker and this setup, I can't say it's say to ignore it.

More than once in 12 years I've seen sometry try a new method for a party that failed and ruined the party.

For future reference, get a temp probe that has a low temp setting so that IF it drops below a certain temp you'll know it.

So true...on the last party my regular method on my Bradley Smoker failed...never had a butt finish in under 12 hours...had a big butt and shoulder in the smoker set low, went to bed...8 hours later in the am went to bump up temps, took a sneak peak and both were done!! Haha had to keep em until 7PM! They were good a lil dry but no one other than me could tell.

I should have plenty of time if is running behind in cook time...however, I might be in trouble if it finishes fast again! But I did learn a lot reading through the threads and if it finishes early I will cambro

For this weekend, I got one of those fancy remote temp probes so hopefully it will alert me of any problems.

Thanks again!

Never have had a problem with any drying effect on the two stage smoke, gotta remember these smokers are rather moist for a fire burning smoker.

The lower temps seem to smolder and not have a high fan output...as long as you keep the door shut!

Smokin, Did you have an uncle Gizmo?

quote:

Originally posted by cal:
gotta remember these smokers are rather moist for a fire burning smoker.

What are you basing this statement on?

On the fact that I can buy an eight back of thighs, trim and cook them in the FEC, without brining and still have a moist product...seems to me to be a moist cooker.

I think the FE's are a drier type of cook than the Electrics, but have more humidity than most stick burners because of the small exhaust.

I see the results in the barks. I get a better bark (drier air) in an FE than I do the Electrics.