Yeah I posted a while back trying to see if anyone had tried it yet. Good memory!
I did try just putting hardwood charcoal and standard charcoal on the burner plate and nothing happened smoke ring wise. I did get a slight flavor of the charcoal. But what I am trying now is putting already hot coals into the OBS. Not sure how I am going to do it yet. I tried putting one on the burner plate and took it off soon after as it didn't look good for the burner plate.
I am thinking I might try using a small cast iron pan at the very bottom of the smoker unit. I figure I would put some insulators under it so as not to ruin the bottom of the smoker. I would do this for the first hour or two with and without smoke at the same time.
My goal is to get a hot enough heat source in with hardwood charcoal while not A) Ruining the smoker B) Killing myself in the process C) Making it easily repeatable D) Producing something resembling a smoke ring.
For now I will use my barrel smoker on briskets till they hit 150 or so then move it to my OBS.
