Offset Smoker Barbeque with Charcoal - Easy temperature control  

Hey Tony! I just bought my offset smoker yesterday. I didn’t know it would be hard for me to grill anything and manage the temperature. I’m learning a lot from your video so thank you!!

Those look awesome! Great video and very informative, thanks for sharing!

Thanks, great video. I will try this.

The video was very helpful. Thank you.

Waiting on that new video pops got my smoker earlier than expected. came in yesterday. Seasoned it and tomorrow I’m sealing it with the gasket thanks to your video. Can’t wait for my first cook . Your videos help greatly 💪💪💪

Thanks for the awesome video! Doing this for Xmas lunch!

I was wondering if this was possible. Gonna definitely try it! Thanks for the video!!

Thank you for the detailed info about temp management, you really know how to explain all the process step by step , the best for you .

Thank you so much for your clear and easy set up with the smoker. I’m a newbie to smoking and struggled a few times. I’m feeling confident that I can do this now. Also I bought the thermo T20 so all good . Take care !

Once again your the go to BBQ Pit master. Thank you sir for your services.

Fantastic information! You are a bbq hero!

You're welcome! Let me know how it goes. Thanks!

Same here I brought a weber kettle as my first charcoal bbq and I would use chunks in there for low n slow cooking, I use to have this bbq pumping white smoke like a steam train 😅 then I learnt chips are better in the kettle using a minion method, clean blue smoke made everything taste absolutely amazing. Owned the Char-griller smoking champ for 2 years now, couldn't figure out how to run just wood in it till I found this channel, thank you for all your content you're awsome dude

loved the video thank you so muchfinally looking to get my very first smoker and am a total novice and this was a huge help

Good stuff & thorough

I have the same offset smoker. I got some tuning plates for it, a fire basket, and a stack extension and it cooks like a champ.

im a new subscriber and new to offset smokin. really appreciate ur videos

This man just stays putting out bangers!

I really enjoyed your video. nice, calm, slow, relaxed like smoking should be but effective. Getting a new used smoker delivered today and can't wait to get smoking.

I have an offset similar to this one, going to try this out with some wood chunks the next time I fire it up 👍

I really like the way you show every step front start to finish. I have a Oklahoma Joe Offset. I can keep a fire with the firebox door open. But as soon as I close it, my fire goes out. It's aggravating. So I cook with it open lol. But after watching your videos I have learned a lot about how not to do the things I've been doing, thanks!

Will be trying this the next time I grill just got my new smoker I’ve only done one grill so far and the brisket was a bit dry think the temperature got a bit out of hand. Your my go to guy for offset bbq videos, thanks

I got my notification you just loaded a video!!! Ribs!!!

A timely video, I did 2 racks of spare ribs & 2 tri-tips yesterday. They came out according to my neighbor, "excellent". Your video provided excellent information and confirmed my overall experience. As you mentioned, I was horrible at first, I cooked with a lot of white smoke, used a lot of wood, and never had a great finished product. After much trial & error, I finally, as you said, learned my grill, used more charcoal, and figured out my fire management. Things I picked up from watching 1. the use of added probes in the pit. 2. open the firebox when adding more charcoal - allowing the white smoke not to enter the cooking area 3. it is ok to drop temp during this process. I have a question - I use the Char-Griller Texas Trio, with offset, the grilling area is smaller since the other half of the pit allows me to use propane. My question is, do you find the need to increase the fire/temp of the fire when you have a lot of meat on the grill? I wonder this since I started with ribs and then added the tri-tip, I kept the gauge at 250 it just seems to heat the meat slower. Thanks, I look forward to viewing more of your videos.

Gr8 Video, thoroughly enjoyed. I'm cooking 4 Tomahawk Steaks for Christmas 🎄. I plan on using Hickory & Charcoal for fuel. So I'll be starting out with a half of chimney of charcoal instead of a full chimney, then once ignited I'll add my wood, I had small splits but after watching most of your fire management videos, I'll cut them on half, looking to hold my temp @ 250 degrees until I get an internal temp of 135, then I'll let them rest & crank up my Char Griller up to 600 degrees and sear.

Hi Tony! Just subscribed today. Wondering if you can do this method with lump charcoal or does it have to be regular charcoal?

I think this is ok if you want that grilled flavor profile,but the offset smoker was intended to produce smoke flavored bbq so if you're wanting that low and slow smokehouse style flavor meat then charcoal isnt going to work for that,but I think it is good for the backyard grill style..Its also a good starting point to allow newbies to get comfortable with the convection characteristics of an offset..A charcoal that I think would work well for this method is Jealous Devil's competition log charcoal..It has a long burn to it like briquettes without the amount of ash that briquettes produce..

Great video mate. I'm in the middle of a cook on the C Griller Competition Pro and have been piling on lump charcoal (heatbeads) every 15 - 30mins, temps going up and down. I normally cook my low and slow on the weber kettle with heatbead briquettes with no major issues and dial in on temp. This vid is interesting as it's essentially transferring the same principle over between bbq kits. I've noticed the Lump charcoal burns a little dirtier - would you stick to briquettes or same principle with lump charcoal. (I don't use wood for cooking)

Very good and useful thank you 👌. Is it possible to use the main barrel as a grill putting some charcoal in it instead of in the burning box ?

How do you get the smoke flavor when using this method. Also I would have loved to see the cut and eat on the final product

have you tried the hot and fast method using charcoal in your offset? i would imagine if you used like 2 chimney stacks of B and B charcoal you could get 400 degrees in that smoker. curious if you have tried it

Question, if you were cooking only pork ribs, would the cook time be less than six hours at 250? Perhaps 4-5 maybe?

Just found your channel. Great stuff. Have you tried using just charcoal in the Grand Champ?

If you add a tip top temp to your rig your temp control will be completely controlled with what you're doing, like no variation at all👍

Hey Tony, I have the Chargriller Competition Pro. Pretty much the same smoker as yours. Do you know of a charcoal basket that would fit out firebox? Everything I see on Amazon says it's for the Oklahoma Joe.

Can I use this technique with traditional charcoal also or would I need briquettes as traditional charcoal tends to burn fast? Makes sense to choke it actually the more I think about it.

I bought an offset smoker recently and tried a brisket and maintain consistent temps was really hard. I had swings of 50F when adding splits. My WSM on the other hand holds temp really consistent for hours even with wood chunks in it. Your method seems really good to holding temp, but in ordered to get at least a little smoke flavor do your recommend chunks as opposed to splits…would that give off less white smoke??

Thank you for this video, I'm learning so much from your channel. I am new to this, so this might be a stupid question, but when using a charcoal fire, would it be ok to periodically throw flavoured wood chips on to the charcoal, like I would do in my direct smoker?

Hey I just came across this video I'm in front of my little offset for the first time. A friend said not to use those kingsford charcoal so I bought lump. Will get the ones you're using for next time as it looks so much easier.

I'm considering doing a cook where I start with wood then finish with charcoal. I'm done a 12hr wood with wood. Then I thought about it. Why did I do that if it's said that protein usually stops taking in smoke at around 165 degrees. I have the Chargriller competition pro btw

Great video. What books do you recommend.

Can you use lump charcoal like fogo and still get that smokey wood flavor on your meat?

I have the exact same grill and was wondering if I could use a water pan with this?

Great video

I have almost the same grill. But, I seem to have an issue that my cooking chamber does not get over 225, even if I have a mound of charcoal and all the vents open. I'm the process of rigging a fan to a PID controller to turn on and blow air slowly at the firebox vent holes when the temp in the cooking chamber falls below a set point.

Thanks 4 the e tips...i just bought one of these. I did my 1st cook last weekend a pork butt, it was a 9 and half hour cook. I went through a ton of charcoal, but it was a cold pittsburgh Saturday and it was me outside with some beer and baby sitting the smoker constant temp spikes/drops...i struggled with it but its a learning curve...im sure ill get better ad time goes on. My question is do you think a water pan is beneficial or not needed? Ive seen some people say it adds moisture and keeps a spike down others say you don't need..any thoughts?

How many bags of charcoal did you use?

Hey Tony, based on your experience what’s better “independent smoker or this style?” Also is it safe to use charcoal in the big area where on the typical grill charcoal would be? Or is it exclusive to the Side smoke pit?

can you add wood chunks at some point for flavour?

I enjoyed your video Tony very informative 👍, but just one thing no slice and taste 😋

Sometimes my temp burns too hot and when I close my vents and try to choke it it does nothing. It’ll be going way past 300 when I’m trying to keep it at 225. I guess my next attempt I’m not gonna use a full chimney just a half and see what happens

At last ! Someone who uses a smokers like a majority of people do .

I wish I had watched this yesterday before buying 50lbs of wood. I could have just bought a couple big bags of Kingsford and a bit of wood here and there for flavor

I was listening to your video but I didn't hear you say anything about thin blue smoke. I've heard that if you can see thin blue smoke that means your temperature is nearly right on your firebed . when you really get your temperature fine-tuned you nearly can not see that thin blue smoke.. Your pork and beef ribs look excellent but were you spritzing them with a liquid that we didn't see on the video so the meat wouldn't dry out too soon ? I'm going to give that process a try. I have a cooking chamber like you do but no firebox but I was thinking I could start my charcoal fire on one end of the cooking chamber and then on the other end I have a great that is higher so it will catch the smoke as it's on its way out through the stack.. could that set up I have with my cooking chamber act like a offset smoker? I've used offset smokers for 35 years and got excellent barbecue but changed over to a pellet smoker and was severely dissatisfied with the flavor of white smoke even cooking low and slow at 130° chamber temperature and no peeking while it was smoking with the rack of ribs in there for 5 hours with mesquite wood with a screaming hot small bed of mesquite and never got any mesquite flavor on my pork ribs at all.. couldn't even tell the ribs were ever near a smoker... So I was wondering if fogo charcoal would work with the larger size real wood for those longer Cooks without the white smoke but the blue smoke is is still there but you just can't see it because it's that thin... But thin blue smoke is no indication that you will get that smokey wood flavor on your meat because that happened to me and no the wood was not over seasoned it was chunks in a bag that I bought from a grocery store and no they didn't look weathered and cracked like they had been sitting out in the weather forever.. So will my offset makeshift barbecue cooking chamber give results like a official offset smoker using lump charcoal which has the benefit of invisible blue smoke ??? this is the first time I've ever heard the concept of using charcoal to smoke with like you're using an offset smoker and I really like the idea of being able to slow the fire down with your vents.. Excellent video dude I'm going to create another experiment.. I will create a fire with some long burning lump charcoal like fogo and once I get my small coal bed will play seasoned chunk mesquite blocks on top of the bed that were preheated to bypass that white smoke stage to give my barbecued chicken what it is missing from charcoal , the flavor in the lignans of the wood of the added mesquite wood to the fire .. maybe after doing a little juggling I'll get that combination right and get that flavor on the barbecue... I actually did create thin blue smoke one day in my cooking chamber using pit boss charcoal blend pellets but there was no Smoky flavor on the pork ribs but the color was excellent and tender... There must be something about having your fire separate from your cooking chamber maybe it helps to act like a heat sink and dissipate the extra heat that isn't needed at the moment.. I'm learning to build the fire right up against the door on my firebox to get the heat as far away from the cooking chamber as possible,.. Question , when preheating your firewood that produces your flavor can you get it too hot or does that have any effect when the wood starts producing blue smoke and holding onto that Smoky flavor ???

Do you notice a flavor difference in using splits, vs this and woodchips?

Do u still get that smokey flavor I guess one can add chunks of wood here and there

Do you smoke brisket this way too? If so,if you dont open the lid to look do you not spritz?

Wait I am confused… I saw lots of vids where they put a piece of wood for flavor on top of the coals … which give that smoke and flavor … but you don’t open the lid for it to be fully lit … you just leave it to smolder … in your case you said to not choke the airflow when using wood … could you please help me understand?

I just bought an offset. I'm curious without using any wood do you get a smoky flavor and a smoke ring?

Could you add wood chunks to that cook?

BBQ

Do you get Smokey taste with this method

Topic begins at 9 minutes

You are 6 hours in and that is your first beer?

Thought you cook with smoke not heat hence the name smoker

That's just indirect cooking..... Like you could do in a kettle

You gonna drink or cook

I can’t believe you’re going off the gauge that comes with that smoker. The char-griller smoking champ is a mediocre smoker at best, ask me how I know. I’ve added lava lock sealer because it leaks like a sieve, baffle plate, new temp gauges at grate level, extended the smoke stack to the grate, and built a homemade fire basket .

I’m sorry, but that ain’t smoking my guy. That looks more like grill’n lol. That meat looks toast. If your smoking u need to set that meat to very far end of the pit not on top of the Vent. Ur still learning 😅

Your just grilling, not smoking. You have to use some wood to say your smoking 😅

This video is crazy my dude..u not smoking no meat. That's a oven 😂..u wild this one he said matter of fact u don't see no smoke lol that's because u not smoking. I hope u got more wisdom in the world of grilling

To me you are defeating the purpose of using an offset smoker. If you're only cooking with the heat of charcoal the charcoal brings very little flavor to the food without smoke, hence the purpose of wood. One might simply cook this in my oven in my kitchen, don't get the purpose of not using wood.

I'm Sorry. You purchased a large "SMOKER" barbeque Designed for doing multiple Racks and briskets & ETC over a long cook w/smoke being introduced as needed. Short answer here If you want to use straight Charcoal save the money and Go buy a Weber kettle!!!

Your not smoking any meat. Which that is what an offset smoker is for. If I wanted an outside oven I would buy an electric oven and put it on my patio. You need to quit saying your smoking meat when all you are doing is putting it in an oven.

Those look awesome! Great video and very informative, thanks for sharing!