How much smoke

[Frank]

Hello to everyone,

I am a "Newbie".  just recently purchased my BS and I am excited about joining you all and learning how to smoke.  My main question is "how much smoke do I use"??? My first experiment was with jerky.  I now know how charcoal is made ;D   Thanks for all the help

[manxman]

Hi Frank and welcome to the forum,

The amount of smoke varies very much with exactly what you are doing, most people do not use more than 4 hours, perhaps 5 hours smoke for anything because beyond that time you are usually burning pucks for no return on the $/£'s invested.

Having said that I use 8 hours to cold smoke bacon and always use 5 hours to cold smoke cheese but that demonstrates how things do vary considerable.

However, the cooking period often goes on well beyond the smoking period, maybe 12+ hours cooking a reasonable sized joint of meat of which the first 4 hours only would include smoking.

So in answer to your question I would have a look around the forum for specifics or post a question when you have something specific in mind.

I have no experience of jerky but I do know there is quite an bit of info here on the forum on this topic, for example:

http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=1783.msg17349#msg17349

Hope this points you in the right direction, have fun! ;D

[Oldman]

Greetings Frank,

My first experiment was with jerky.  I now know how charcoal is made

Thanks Frank, I'm laughing with ya~~!

[MallardWacker]

Good Morning Frank and WELCOME!!!

Hay look for "White Tail Fan", he's our resident jerky dude...I'm sure he will chime in here.

[jaeger]

Frank,
Welcome to the forum!
When I make jerky, I usually smoke with hickory for 2 1/2 - 3 hours. I use high heat, with the damper wide open. The important technique is to rotate the racks top to bottom and front to back. I rotate about every hour. With the damper open and the continuous door opening for rotation, the cabinet temp doesn't get to hot. Usually with 5 racks the total time for a 5# batch of jerky is about 4 - 4 1/2 hours. After about the 3 hour point, during the rotations, I start removing the pieces that are to my preference and rearranging pieces that still need to be finished.
Something else you should try Frank is to make a "ground" jerky and smoking the same way. Here I like to use about 85% to 90% lean ground beef or venison. When I make these I like to run the strips in line with the heating element. Here again, during rotations you can move the strips around towards the finishing stages. The pieces will be cooked evenly instead of having one end of each piece cooked more than the other end.
Let us know how your next smoke turns out!!

[Frank]

Thanks everyone for the great information.  I will try your suggestions.  I am now going to experiment with a pork butt or pork shoulder or whatever it is called.  I will let ya'll know the outcome.  wish me luck ;D

[whitetailfan]

Hi Frank,
For jerky, I use between 2 to 3 hours of hickory and 80% of the time I am using whole muscle red meat.  Mostly deer, some beef.  I bought the wife a jerky cannon for Christmas one year and she loves to do round sticks, the kids wont leave them alone.

Other meats, I use about 3 hours on chicken, 4 hours on a butt.  I have never gone past 4 hours, I think diminishing returns happen there, plus that's the most flavour I ever want.  The actual amount will also depend on the strength of the flavour, so it's more of a trial and error deal of 3 to 4 hours and varying pucks.  Good luck.

There is a great puck vs meat chart on Oldmans site.  Follow the links about halfway down this board.  It now has its own category for easy finding.  Olds sig pic also carries the link.