# Smoker question



## Longgun (Sep 7, 2007)

Anyone ever had a flareup in the last twenty minutes of finishing up a five rack job of goose/elk/antelope strips, and have the whole lot of various wild tastyness go down in near charcoal? 


...me neither... -O,-


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

whoops!


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## Bax* (Dec 14, 2008)

Shoot what happened? Sounds like some of the grease caused the flare-up.

Sorry bro :x


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## Critter (Mar 20, 2010)

Sounds like that episode of Naked and Afraid when they were smoking a snake and it got away from them.


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## Longgun (Sep 7, 2007)

i suppose there's a personal first for just about everything but ... near as i could tell, me opening the vault door gave the lil smoking chunks of wood just enough O2 to ignite, there by getting the drip pan "involved" there by tourching the whole lot... bummer deal/live and learn. :neutral:


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

You need to keep those wood chunks wet... they shouldn't ever be dry enough to ever catch fire. Get a bunch out a head of time and soak them for a day in a bucket before smoking. Add water from time to time as they dry out to control how fast they get consumed.

We have 10lbs of marinating meat in the fridge right now, going to smoke it tomorrow... cannot wait! Smells sooooooooo good.


-DallanC


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## sknabnoj (Nov 29, 2012)

I don't soak my chips, the water evaporates before the wood starts to smoke anyway, what prevents the wood from catching fire is not the moistness, it's the controlled oxygen flow into the cooker, if you allow just enough oxygen to smolder the wood, that's where you get the smoke production. Soaking wood doesn't do much. I wonder if it was a combination between a dirty cooker/ grease/ and too much oxygen? What are you cooking on?


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## Longgun (Sep 7, 2007)

sknabnoj said:


> I don't soak my chips, the water evaporates before the wood starts to smoke anyway, what prevents the wood from catching fire is not the moistness, it's the controlled oxygen flow into the cooker, if you allow just enough oxygen to smolder the wood, that's where you get the smoke production. Soaking wood doesn't do much. I wonder if it was a combination between a dirty cooker/ grease/ and too much oxygen? What are you cooking on?


small smoke vault, clean as a whistle when i started... not much in the drip pan on the final check. Fact, most of it was elk so very light on the fatty goo-drip stuff. Im sure it was because i gave it a breath and walked away. Potentially reuinous situation but the smoker/gear is fine. the last "X" batches were smoked with 100% dry chips, and not a problem one...


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