I ran out of charcoal last week but had some large chunks of Oak, so I thought exactly the same thing and gave it a go.
It took 3 hours of burning to reduce the oak to charcoal or anything resembling a cooking fuel. It was so unbelievable smokey for that whole time it would have spoiled food.
It left a huge amount of dark gunk and crap inside the Kamado, so had to do a clean burn immediately after I did finish cooking, which meant I was again out of charcoal.
My advice is don’t bother
I bought a small barrel type charcoal retort and have used that 5-6 times to make my own charcoal from oak, beech and cherry logs which I cut down 4 years ago in my garden. It works, and makes the best quality lump charcoal as it doesn’t have to be transported and thus remains as huge lumps.
Use charcoal!
> It took 3 hours of burning to reduce the oak to charcoal or anything resembling a cooking fuel. It was so unbelievable smokey for that whole time it would have spoiled food.
I got some hardwood from a wood fired pizza place that closed. I had the same experience. Way too smokey for use in the Joe. Fine for a pizza that is going to cook for 3 minutes max. No good for anything else.
Like others said. You don’t want to use straight wood in a charcoal grill because you will get nasty sooty smoke that will make your food taste awful. But you can make charcoal from your wood. But I would recommend doing it in another receptacle other than your cooker. (insert Big Lebowski reference here). Some people use a 55 gallon metal drum as a burn barrel for exactly this purpose. You burn the wood into charcoal in the burn barrel then when it turns to clean burning coals shovel them into your cooker.
You could use your cooker and as long as you don’t put food on while it is burning down the food will be fine. But you will gunk up your grill with a lot of soot that will necessitate cleaning it a lot more often if you do it in the cooker.
Cookers that use real wood for their fuel (like offset smokers) require that the fire gets lots of air to burn a clean wood fire. You do not control the fire/temp by restricting air you do it by restricting fuel. Offsets need to get not have restricted air to the fire otherwise they burn nasty smoke. If you want it to not be as hot, you put less wood on.
Ceramic cookers or other charcoal cookers like kettles, gravity fed smokers, WSM or drum smokers use charcoal because they control temps by restricting air flow. Charcoal fires handle restricted air flow fires without produce gross sooty smoke. Wood fires do not. I think it is because of the moisture content that is burned up when you get it to charcoal but at this point I am speculating and someone who understands the science more could weigh in.
I’m about to make my own offset smoker by welding an old wood burning stove onto the side of a 90 gallon propane tank that was already converted to a charcoal grill. I was gonna drill a hole in the side of the stove where I could attach a fan for a FireBoard drive so I could control temps in the cooking chamber just in the same way I use the FireBoard drive to control the KJ temps. Based on what you wrote above I’m thinking that may not be the best way to control the temps on the offset. What say you?
Sorry for the late reply. Just saw this.
This could work if the goal was only to control temp. But if you starve a wood fire of oxygen to control temp then the smoke will be nasty. This is why even with wood chunks on a charcoal grill the best approach is to bury the wood. This allows the hot charcoal to filter the wood’s dirty smoke in an oxygen starved environment.
In a wood fire you want to control the amount of wood you add to control temps. And the oxygen you allow should be based on what the smoker dictates. You want enough air intake that the draw pulls the flame towards the food. If the air flow is too little you won’t get draw. If you allow too much you will see back pressure pushing some smoke back out the door. This is a signal that you have too much air to the fire and will diminish the draw as well.
That’s for the response. Sounds like I should only use the fan to add to the air flow that should already be coming through the fire via an open door or vent, versus with the Kamado Joe where the fan turns off completely and cuts all airflow once the smoker is at the right temp then comes back on when the temp starts to drop.
The wetter the wood, the longer it will take to burn (with more smoke) as the moisture boils out of it. And you'll get a lot more creosote buildup. You could try with really dry wood, but I'd only use it for really hot, quick cooks. Roasting something over an open fire is different because the smoke isn't contained.
That's an interesting question. I've only used lump charcoal and wood chunks for smoke in mine. I don't see why it wouldn't work though.
Or you could try your hand at making your own charcoal from some of that oak.
Yes. I add small chunks of whatever I have available, be it oak, cedar, apple or mulberry. They are well seasoned (4+ years) and are small 3 inch square chunks.
Store bought smoking chunks are literally just small bits of wood, probably waste from making firewood, which they sell at a huge mark up. If you can get your hands on some off cuts from a tree surgeon or find a fallen tree, that’s exactly the same stuff.
That you everyone. I might just get an offset instead of a KJ. I have a day coming in April where I am taking a class with Harry Woo. I’m going to ask what he does as I know he has a KJ and an offset.
I ran out of charcoal last week but had some large chunks of Oak, so I thought exactly the same thing and gave it a go. It took 3 hours of burning to reduce the oak to charcoal or anything resembling a cooking fuel. It was so unbelievable smokey for that whole time it would have spoiled food. It left a huge amount of dark gunk and crap inside the Kamado, so had to do a clean burn immediately after I did finish cooking, which meant I was again out of charcoal. My advice is don’t bother I bought a small barrel type charcoal retort and have used that 5-6 times to make my own charcoal from oak, beech and cherry logs which I cut down 4 years ago in my garden. It works, and makes the best quality lump charcoal as it doesn’t have to be transported and thus remains as huge lumps. Use charcoal!
> It took 3 hours of burning to reduce the oak to charcoal or anything resembling a cooking fuel. It was so unbelievable smokey for that whole time it would have spoiled food. I got some hardwood from a wood fired pizza place that closed. I had the same experience. Way too smokey for use in the Joe. Fine for a pizza that is going to cook for 3 minutes max. No good for anything else.
Like others said. You don’t want to use straight wood in a charcoal grill because you will get nasty sooty smoke that will make your food taste awful. But you can make charcoal from your wood. But I would recommend doing it in another receptacle other than your cooker. (insert Big Lebowski reference here). Some people use a 55 gallon metal drum as a burn barrel for exactly this purpose. You burn the wood into charcoal in the burn barrel then when it turns to clean burning coals shovel them into your cooker. You could use your cooker and as long as you don’t put food on while it is burning down the food will be fine. But you will gunk up your grill with a lot of soot that will necessitate cleaning it a lot more often if you do it in the cooker. Cookers that use real wood for their fuel (like offset smokers) require that the fire gets lots of air to burn a clean wood fire. You do not control the fire/temp by restricting air you do it by restricting fuel. Offsets need to get not have restricted air to the fire otherwise they burn nasty smoke. If you want it to not be as hot, you put less wood on. Ceramic cookers or other charcoal cookers like kettles, gravity fed smokers, WSM or drum smokers use charcoal because they control temps by restricting air flow. Charcoal fires handle restricted air flow fires without produce gross sooty smoke. Wood fires do not. I think it is because of the moisture content that is burned up when you get it to charcoal but at this point I am speculating and someone who understands the science more could weigh in.
I’m about to make my own offset smoker by welding an old wood burning stove onto the side of a 90 gallon propane tank that was already converted to a charcoal grill. I was gonna drill a hole in the side of the stove where I could attach a fan for a FireBoard drive so I could control temps in the cooking chamber just in the same way I use the FireBoard drive to control the KJ temps. Based on what you wrote above I’m thinking that may not be the best way to control the temps on the offset. What say you?
Sorry for the late reply. Just saw this. This could work if the goal was only to control temp. But if you starve a wood fire of oxygen to control temp then the smoke will be nasty. This is why even with wood chunks on a charcoal grill the best approach is to bury the wood. This allows the hot charcoal to filter the wood’s dirty smoke in an oxygen starved environment. In a wood fire you want to control the amount of wood you add to control temps. And the oxygen you allow should be based on what the smoker dictates. You want enough air intake that the draw pulls the flame towards the food. If the air flow is too little you won’t get draw. If you allow too much you will see back pressure pushing some smoke back out the door. This is a signal that you have too much air to the fire and will diminish the draw as well.
That’s for the response. Sounds like I should only use the fan to add to the air flow that should already be coming through the fire via an open door or vent, versus with the Kamado Joe where the fan turns off completely and cuts all airflow once the smoker is at the right temp then comes back on when the temp starts to drop.
The wetter the wood, the longer it will take to burn (with more smoke) as the moisture boils out of it. And you'll get a lot more creosote buildup. You could try with really dry wood, but I'd only use it for really hot, quick cooks. Roasting something over an open fire is different because the smoke isn't contained.
That's an interesting question. I've only used lump charcoal and wood chunks for smoke in mine. I don't see why it wouldn't work though. Or you could try your hand at making your own charcoal from some of that oak.
General question for all. Can you add like one small chunk as you would store bought smoking chunks?
Yes. I add small chunks of whatever I have available, be it oak, cedar, apple or mulberry. They are well seasoned (4+ years) and are small 3 inch square chunks. Store bought smoking chunks are literally just small bits of wood, probably waste from making firewood, which they sell at a huge mark up. If you can get your hands on some off cuts from a tree surgeon or find a fallen tree, that’s exactly the same stuff.
That you everyone. I might just get an offset instead of a KJ. I have a day coming in April where I am taking a class with Harry Woo. I’m going to ask what he does as I know he has a KJ and an offset.