Difficulty keeping temperature when smoking meat

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Is it normal to have to tend to an offset smoker every 15-20 mins, to keep the temp close to my target?

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This is where learning your smoker comes in big, you need to know how to set your vents based on history when you work the fire. It's all a guessing game and the better you know your smoker, the better you will get at it.

This is why a lot of us switched to electric/pellet/gravity. We want to do less babysitting. There are some electronic assists for offset now though that use fans to reduce the need for babysitting.

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Is it normal to have to tend to an offset smoker every 15-20 mins, to keep the temp close to my target?

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Tending to it all day is half of the fun because you get to sit outside with a beverage and tell everyone to leave you alone or else dinner will be ruined.

Not cold at all

Two things I would recommend is splitting your wood into small splits and place those splits on top of your firebox before adding to the fire. The smaller splits will burn more evenly and warming up the splits will help them ignite quicker and not smoke. Temp swings will be normal until you figure out how to manage your fire and how your pit draws. Lots of trial and error, but don’t get frustrated, stick with it.

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just gotta prevent the airflow from letting it catch.

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You want your logs to "catch" fire. They need to be burning, else you are just smoldering and the smoke from that gives an off-putting flavor to the meat.

I agree with you that playing around with the amount of wood in the firebox is a good idea to help figure out how to get your smoker tuned in so that you aren't having to tend to it every 20 minutes. I usually don't need to add a log for 1.5-2 hours on mine.

OP, I had the same issues with offsets that I've owned. You just need to spend some time building a decent fire in your firebox and messing with the vents. Start with everything fully open, then adjust your firebox vent. I usually don't mess with the smokestack vent and leave it open.

I'm not sure how big your firebox is, but I always start with lump charcoal. I get it lit in a chimney, then spread that across the bottom of the firebox, then add two small logs in the direction of the air flow on top (with space between, then two slightly larger logs on top, facing the opposite direction, then 1 dense log on top of those, facing the opposite direction of the last two.

If you need a viusal, check the first few seconds of this video: LINK

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It's not the wood. You just need to learn how to use it. It takes time.

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Getting shitty wood will make the igniting process far more difficult. The wood will take longer to catch and burn off thicker smoke

Lot's of good info in these replies that I had to learn with my smoker as well. It can be the wood if it's really green or too much moisture content has evaporated - I've had problems with both in the past. After a little practice you can pick up a split and tell if it ready to be used or not. All I really use is oak (just because it is abundant) and if I pick up a split that is too light then I'll throw it in the firepit pile. If it is too heavy, then I'll put it back on the rack for a later time. Great advice in using charcoal to build a base, preheating splits, and using half splits - all dependent on what your smoker likes.

I had an offset years ago, and the key for me was starting with lump and using large chunks of wood instead of logs or the wood chips. Logs took too long to get going, and would spike the temps as they caught fire. Chunks were great because I would use a chimney starter and a side burner to get them going, so I wasn't adding plain wood to the smoke box.

I have a drum, can’t you just mix lump charcoal in with the wood?