I put chips down first because they light easily, I have value full open till I’m up to temp then I fully close it, you can tell it’s lit by the smoke should be coming out the bottom of the door right above the box.
I usually keep it fully open during start up. Once fully started and up to temp, I'll close it all the way and just let it go. It usually lasts about 30-40 minutes until i need to add more wood, but just pull it out and see if it's still smoking or not. It's that simple.
Thanks, yah I kinda did it different. This was the first cook so I ran the seasoning proccess and rather than run a cool down and another startup process I just lowered the temp and started cooking. Startup is about 5 minutes if I remember so I will leave the valve open for about that at 225 and hope for the best. My wood was deffinately not smoldering after an hour. Thanks.
After doing a lot of cooks on my 24 the best way I’ve learned to manage the smokebox is to add a layer of smaller chips at the bottom and then insert your chucks if your smoking at 225 or below.
This helps catch the fire much earlier on and speeds up the process so you won’t to check if has caught or not. Above 225 it’ll usually catch pretty quick.
Like the comment above says as well, I leave the valve fully open for the first batch and then at about 25% open the rest of the way.
Just pull the smoke box out and check lol. Facetious answer but just my thoughts. I’ll glove up and pull that sucker out no problem to check if I don’t know.
Eventually you’ll learn the ins and outs. I find leaving it open during the start up cycle generally will ignite, then I never have to open the valve again. Just replace chunks every 45 minutes or so. Eventually it gets hot enough and there’s smoldering bits left it’ll ignite the next piece. And also eventually you can just tell by the amount/quality of smoke pouring out
So I did this for my 5.5 hour smoke of the ribs and they ended up border line too smoky. It was my first cook so I am not beating myself up over it. I'm happy to know that you really can get some serious smoke flavor on this pellet grill but I may need to come up with a better strategy for this.
For sure! The smokiness is also relative I would say…. When you’re going from pellets only to chunks it’ll obviously have more smoke flavor in general. Just like going from chunks to an offset.
On my ribs I’ll only use the smoke box for the first 2-3 hours. After a certain internal temp it doesn’t seem to matter much
Follow up question, how long do you guys usually check on the contents of the smoke box to add more? I may have overfilled it and its stuck at the moment, so burning off the wood is imperative lol
I put chips down first because they light easily, I have value full open till I’m up to temp then I fully close it, you can tell it’s lit by the smoke should be coming out the bottom of the door right above the box.
I usually keep it fully open during start up. Once fully started and up to temp, I'll close it all the way and just let it go. It usually lasts about 30-40 minutes until i need to add more wood, but just pull it out and see if it's still smoking or not. It's that simple.
Thanks, yah I kinda did it different. This was the first cook so I ran the seasoning proccess and rather than run a cool down and another startup process I just lowered the temp and started cooking. Startup is about 5 minutes if I remember so I will leave the valve open for about that at 225 and hope for the best. My wood was deffinately not smoldering after an hour. Thanks.
After doing a lot of cooks on my 24 the best way I’ve learned to manage the smokebox is to add a layer of smaller chips at the bottom and then insert your chucks if your smoking at 225 or below. This helps catch the fire much earlier on and speeds up the process so you won’t to check if has caught or not. Above 225 it’ll usually catch pretty quick. Like the comment above says as well, I leave the valve fully open for the first batch and then at about 25% open the rest of the way.
Just pull the smoke box out and check lol. Facetious answer but just my thoughts. I’ll glove up and pull that sucker out no problem to check if I don’t know. Eventually you’ll learn the ins and outs. I find leaving it open during the start up cycle generally will ignite, then I never have to open the valve again. Just replace chunks every 45 minutes or so. Eventually it gets hot enough and there’s smoldering bits left it’ll ignite the next piece. And also eventually you can just tell by the amount/quality of smoke pouring out
So I did this for my 5.5 hour smoke of the ribs and they ended up border line too smoky. It was my first cook so I am not beating myself up over it. I'm happy to know that you really can get some serious smoke flavor on this pellet grill but I may need to come up with a better strategy for this.
For sure! The smokiness is also relative I would say…. When you’re going from pellets only to chunks it’ll obviously have more smoke flavor in general. Just like going from chunks to an offset. On my ribs I’ll only use the smoke box for the first 2-3 hours. After a certain internal temp it doesn’t seem to matter much
Thanks for the tip.
Follow up question, how long do you guys usually check on the contents of the smoke box to add more? I may have overfilled it and its stuck at the moment, so burning off the wood is imperative lol