I smoked a whole chicken last night, and put in a 2 oz. chunk of apple wood and set the temperature to 225. 15 minutes in, as expected smoke started coming out. But 45 minutes later, the smoke mysteriously stopped.
I opened the door, and there was no smoke buildup inside the unit. Looking at the chunk of wood, it was charred on the bottom, but it looked like the charring was getting in the way of more smoking. So I turned the wood over and shut the door.
10 minutes or so later the smoke started pouring out again, but 30 minutes or so later it stopped again. An examination of the wood showed the same issue. It looked like once the wood got charred to a certain point, it prevented any more smoking from happening.
This morning I'm doing a test with a new chunk of apple. After about an hour, the smoke stopped, so I turned the wood over and the same thing happened.
Does this sort of thing happen all the time and I just didn't notice before? If so, I must have gotten luck on all my previous smokes in which the wood kept smoking until either I stopped the unit, or the wood was completely consumed.
If this is not a common occurrence, what could be the cause? The wood came from Cookshack and doesn't appear to be wet at all.
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