British BBQ Society Forums

Hello all.

I will be smoking a brisket tonight for several hours, and I have a question regarding how to keep the temperature constant (around 250f) whilst topping up the coals. I'm trying out a new smoker I got for Christmas and have found the temperatures to be really responsive to air flows, much more so than my kettle. But when I light a set of coals using my chimney starter, the temperature rockets up to around 400f before coming back down to 250f.

Do I add coals to the fire without using the starter? Do I only light a few coals before adding to the fire? I don't want the sudden spike in temperature to ruin my brisket.

Any help much appreciated, will definitely post a picture of the result.

Thanks,
Steve.

Hello chum,
Difficult to answer without knowing what you are cooking on. If it is an upright smoker like a WSM or Pro Q then half a chimney of lit chucked on a full basket should see you through the night......

Cheeers
Tiny

Hello.

It's an offset smoker. Should be using oak logs ideally, but they're hard to come by where I live.

Thanks.

Ah, an offset, then sadly cant help, I have an cheap offset and having wrestled with it I swore I would never get another. I have thought long and hard on the subject and cant for the life of me work out why you would have an offset ever......to try and get heat and smoke to go sidewards when it wants to go up seems like you are making your life infinitely harder.

Not dissing your offset as I know several swear by them I just cant workout why.....hope thcook went well and you are looking at brisket goodness this morning....
Cheers
Tiny

I know this is late, but may help in the future. Try lighting coals on one end of your firebox and let it burn across, and as it gets to the other side add unlit charcoal to the side that has burnt out. I would place some charcoal on the lit side to make sure that it will light and work its way back across the firebox.