I got this cheap charcoal BBQ/smoker and tried the first recipe I found, pork tenderloin.
I used 2 ready to light bags of charcoal I had and bought some Jack Daniels wood chips for my first attempt.
The result was edible and not horrible but quite dry.
I really struggled to control the heat it launched right up to over 500f then steadily dropped to 100f over about 2 hours.
I know there is a whole lot wrong with the above, it was an impulse buy with little to no research. Any top tips for a novice?
by theisal
44 Comments
Couple of friendly tips:
I would never ever use ready to light charcoal, it’s soaked in chemicals and I just think you would want to use a more natural source. B&B is a great one. If you go to http://www.slickdeals.net and search for B&B charcoal. You can find a great deal almost 100% of the time.
Second, the temperature is spiking because you need to control the airflow. Less air getting in will help control and keep the temperature low. There also might be a component to the instant light charcoal on temp piece or regular natural charcoal won’t all lite at the same time, assuming the airflow is controlled.
Yeah man its all good, smoking is a journey. And you learned its not easy. When I watched that video my first thought was that fire is fucking ripping. And then I read you say it was 500 degrees and yeah that makes sense.
Your first problem is using ready to light charcoal. Look at videos of how to set up charcoal smokers and how much charcoal to use. Also, I would probably say wood chips are not good for smoking like this, they’re better for grilling since they burn fast and quick. You need lumps of wood.
Do not use ready to light!
Good smoke is blue colored smoke.
What other have said. But yea that’s a bit too much smoke. You’ll know if your food tastes acrid.
You used two bags of charcoal on a pork tenderloin? Also to smoke with that grill get a small fire started and continue adding to it to maintain low temps. Clean out ash as necessary to keep airflow around the coals. And yes fresh coals smoke like that. You can prestart them if you want less smoke. And ffs get some decent meats. I recommend smoking a tri tip.
https://preview.redd.it/lkm9o76jty5f1.png?width=1759&format=png&auto=webp&s=208048e354d08d37e7254ca25b36d48784282f48
Hey looks just like mine! 😀
White smoke is a fire starved for oxygen. You may have added too much charcoal. Use lump charcoal free of additives if possible. Open the air vents completely and only add enough charcoal for what’s needed on your rig. They all cook different. You should not be able to see thick white smoke out the stack, it should be thin and with a blue tint. Fire management is key for flavorful meat.
Gray smoke is dirty smoke and gives a bad taste on meats. Look to get a translucent blue smoke. That’s clean smoke and that’s what you’re looking for.
Get a chimney to start your coals in. One chimney full should be about right. Once you dump your coals in, add a small piece of wood on top and let it burn. Get a digital thermometer and put the sensor right at the level of the grates. The built-in thermometers on the lid tend to run a bit hot because heat rises. Aim for a temp of about 250. When you get it in that range, close off your damper about 1/2 to 3/4 closed. This will slow the temperature drop. Put the meat on at this point. Add a little wood and charcoal every once and a while to maintain that 250 as close as you can. Takes a little paractice, but you will get the hang of it.
Looks perfect Watch the temperature 200-300° depending on what meat you are smoking. Boneless? Bone in? Pork, Poultry, Beef?
As others have said:
* Too much charcoal.
* The wrong kind of charcoal.
* Too much charcoal *lit at once.*
* I’m guessing you didn’t do indirect heat. Do indirect heat. That means lighting a small fire on one side of the cooker and cooking on the other.
This is how you learn though. Cowboy charcoal is pretty good for smoking, soak the tip of 2-3 paper towels to get the coals going and throw in once ready. That is a whole lot of smoke lol
Lots of good comments here. Yes- you are rolling too much smoke. I can tell by the color of the smoke and the rate at which the smoke is rising that you are too hot, as well. Keep at it- chicken is a great place to start as it is cheap and forgiving. Good luck!
Bro you never have too much SMOKE 💨
FWIW, BAR-A-BBQ starts his smoker with Match Light and he was top of the TX top 50. Last year. Mad Scientist BBQ is a good resource.
I thought the new pope was elected like a month ago…
I think there are a lot of people who don’t use charcoal because it’s tough to manage the temperatures. I have a barrel grill kind of like this but I got a smaller barrel offset that I heat from. It’s probably unnecessary if you can indirect the heat enough but I like the mini barrel because I can open it to add charcoal or wood chunks without disturbing the smokey side.
I usually start with a chimney full of lump charcoal and that’ll pull my main grill up to around 200 degrees. I like to sneak up on the ideal temp instead of over-shooting and waiting for it to come back down. Once I’m around 225-250 I’ll keep an eye on things with grill and meat remote thermometer (kind of a must have), and then as I see the temps drop a bit I’ll fire up another chimney full of charcoal, so there isn’t too much temperature loss.
Chunks of wood for the smoke are where it’s at. For my last batch of pork I used wild cherry from my yard, in 3 inch thick pizza sliced sizes and it worked great.
There is definitely an art to charcoal smoking. My last couple attempts have been successful! You can do it!
It’s a lot of white smoke because everything is catching. Wait for it to die down and turn blue.
Dirty Smoke
That’s a little heavy on the smoke, ideally it should be really “clean” almost transparent but at least it’s not “dirty” smoke which is black and will make the food taste horrible.
That being said “smoking” is a low and slow process usually less than 250 degrees and generally 4+ hour process. Certain meats need this to break down connective tissue, collagen and render fats while not cooking so hot it dries out. Ribs, pork butt/shoulder, brisket, turkey legs are all good candidates.
What you are doing here is more like grilling, hot and fast. Which in this case is OK because that’s the best way to do pork tenderloin. Although 500-100 degrees is a huge temperature swing so it was probably a grill-bbq-smoking all in one.
Anyway biggest tips I would give you as a beginner.
1. Ditch the instant light, get a starter chimney and just use regular charcoal or better yet switch to hardwood lump.
2. Just take some time and learn how to control the temperature on your grill. It’s something that takes some time and experimenting. For now stick with forgiving meats; steaks, sausages, tenderloin and for you first low and slow try a pork butt.
3. Get and use an instant read thermometer; this is probably the most important piece of equipment to really get consistent good results.
4. Check out [amazing ribs](https://amazingribs.com/) this site has everything you need to be a real grill master
Check out the youtube channel “Cowboy Kent Rollins”. His channel is all about outdoor cooking with different types of open flame cooking. From running a small grill to a full-on woodfire stove, Kent has some great instructional videos. A good bit of what his does is smoker cooking.
I had that same grill years ago. Problem is the air intake isn’t very good. All that white smoke you see is your fire being starved of oxygen. Here’s a couple pointers: Google the snake method or minion method to learn how to organize your charcoal to help regulate the temperature better. Use chunks instead of chips, and only one or two at a time. If you’re going to use chips, use barely a handful, and add more when needed. Most importantly, keep your lid open when adding wood and make sure it ignites before closing the lid. Good luck.
Ready to light charcoal isn’t ideal, but I don’t mind white smoke like that the first hour of the cook. Usually temps level out once the meat is in. Don’t think too hard about it
Looks awesome. I wish my smoker gave me that much smoke haha
Depends are you smoking meat, or pulling 2 miles of train?
Yes
Your smoke likely tasted terrible and you didn’t even know it. Just keep in mind that, with charcoal (no wood), your smoker is ready to place food in it when there’s plenty of heat and there’s very little or no smoke. The only smoke you should see comes from the wood.
Smoking with charcoal as fuel is all about getting a good draft going. If I were you I’d do a couple of dry runs (no food, no wood) in order to dial in how much you need to fiddle with the intake and exhaust vents while producing little or no smoke and maintaining your target temperature. Remember that there will be a delay in temperature changes when opening and closing your vents.
And no worries, knowledge makes good smoked meat, not the machine you’re using.
Try more beer
Its only too much smoke if the fire department shows up
I did this exact same thing my first time. Loaded it up with coal and wood and let it rip. Couldn’t control temps, food came out acrid.
Get not ready to light charcoal. Get a chimney. When it’s ashed over, dump it in and add a chunk of wood. Get an instant read thermometer. One with two probes if you can. Use those dampeners. It takes some work, it takes some trial and a lot of error, but the end result is worth it.
Good luck! And have a good time!
Harry soo. Cooking with rye. They have some good videos. Its time for you to start bbq university.
Get a meat thermometer that can be left in your meat so you don’t over cook things. Stuff that is tough and really fatty need to be cooked for hours at a lower temp (~250). Things that are tender and/or low in fat don’t need to go so long
Never use instant light charcoal, it definitely affects the taste. Use the chimney starter with a tumbleweed starter or a couple paper towels soaked in vegetable oil. I use BB, Cowboy Charcoal or Kingsford lump charcoal, some briquettes have binders with them. I used Jealous devil and it’s OK but cowboy and BB are my main two ones.
Open that stack and control you air intake…
A good rule of thumb is that the more smoke you see the worse it is. You want to see next to no smoke. Or like a light blue wisp. This smoke means it is choked and burning too cold. This type of smoke exposure over time will make the meat take on a burnt chemical like taste. Like soot instead of hickory.
You need more air, to put less fuel in, or let your charcoal develop a solid coal bed, then add small amounts of wood over time. If you have wood or charcoal and stuff it heavy, it will choke out the ratio and burn at terrible low temps. Or you waited too long to add to it. If a pellet is doing this any time other than start up, something is wrong.
Always heat charcoal, then add if food is in the smoker or remove food and add back once clean butning. Starting lump charcoal up gets really smokey, adding fresh wood chunks should burn fairly clean or a subtle blue smoke and smell pleasant.
Get some regular pain ol charcoal. Kingsford blue bag and some wood chunks. Since you’re just starting, the best way, in my opinion, to test out your cooker is to do a pork butt. You have to be really bad to mess that up. It’s a fatty cut of meat and can handle any screwups. Use that time to really see what your cooker can do.
Who is the new Pope?
Low and slow is what I was taught. Low heat, slowly cooking. I was also told meat takes on smoke early on in the cook but as it cooks it takes on less smoke, so you want more smoke earlier in the cook. I’m not an award-winner pit master, but I find if I start my bbq by making the neighbors think a new pope was elected, then after 30 mins dial the smoke back all the while keeping my temps at 220-ish…I get the results I want and the taste is what I like. That’s sort of the fun part about getting into BBQ is all the learning and experimenting!
I have pretty much the same grill. Bought it on Amazon last year, and I really do like it. I’d say the best feature is that you can lower and raise the grate the charcoal is on.
When you are smoking something you want to have a 2 zone cooking. So put all the coals on the right side, since that’s where the air intake is. Since the chimney is on the left hand side the air will come in on the bottom right, keep the coals hot, the smoke then travels over the meat up through the chimney. Then for smoking lower the grate as far as it goes. This creates more of a smoking environment. If you are cooking hot and fast, then raise up the coals so you get a better sear.
Also get a chimney to start the charcoal in.
Also pork tenderloin isn’t really a great cut to smoke since it’s so lean, and best when cooked to 145-150. But you could make it work if you get a smoke with a more intense flavor that could still provide flavor even with a smoke as short as 45 minutes. A great wood for short smokes is Mesquite.
Fuck no bro keep it rollin
Great post! Good lucking in future smokes.
That’s not a smoker my friend.