# Good Smoke vs Bad Smoke



## OldBay (May 15, 2003)

Dinner last night was a failure. I made grilled shrimp on my big green egg. Sounds simple enough. The shrimp were bitter and nasty. I can still taste them now, 18 hours later. I believe I have identified the problem and hope to save others the misery:

I was in a rush, so I fired up the BGE with my map gas torch like usual. Bottom vent wide open, no cap on the top. As soon as the dome temp got up to 400 I buried a chunk of apple wood in the hot coals in each of the 3 spots I lit. No I put the grate in and closed the lid. All vents wide open trying to get the grill up to temp so I can eat!

As soon as the dome got back to 400 put the shrimp skewers on, closed the lid and put the cast iron topper on with daisy wheel wide open.

The shrimp cooked in a few minutes flipping twice.

The shrimp looked good, but tasted absolutely awful. I was trying to do too much. I was creating bad smoke but putting the wood chunks on blazing hot coals. Read this article on good vs bad smoke and don’t destroy a $20 bag of shrimp like I did. 

From now on I will be a little more patient. No more wood chunks when I am trying to sear something over high heat. I might try again this week just to get the taste out of my mouth and memory. Next time I'll skip the wood, and just get the coals up to 500-600 and let them stabilize there before cooking.

Link to article: http://www.nakedwhiz.com/goodsmokebadsmoke.htm


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## Paymaster (Jan 22, 2009)

Good Stuff! Thin blue is what I look for.


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## 10NKO (Aug 1, 2010)

Thanks for the link


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## Wkndfishlife (Oct 13, 2013)

Unfortunately I did the same thing to a brisket. It was still a delicious meal, but you had the slight sour taste to it. Parents apparently liked it, so I felt better haha. Still perfecting my smoking abilities and ready to get back into it.


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## Bobmac (Oct 11, 2008)

Sometimes green wood versus cured wood. Never have figured out why tho.


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## DaBig2na (Aug 7, 2011)

Shrimp cooks really fast and they aren't something I'd smoke or even close the lid on my BGE for. If I'm going to grill shrimp I'm either going to season their before I put them on a hot grill or marinade them. I have a cast iron hibachi style grill I use especially for grilling steaks, shrimp, fish etc. I do like the flavor that lump charcoal provides over the cheap processed briquettes. Mapp gas would leave a residual flavor since it is a form of acetylene. 
Heavily smoked shrimp just does not sound appealing to me.
What size BGE were you using?


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## cthulhu (Jul 26, 2014)

Shrimp cook so quickly that they won't really take on much smoke. One thing I do watch for is the amount of bark on wood chunks. Chunks with a lot of bark on them tend to make a more bitter smoke.

Next time you do shrimp, skip the wood, and brush on a sauce with smoked chipotle in it. You can smoke peppers while running other things in the smoker, just like you would trays of kosher salt or ground pepper for seasoning other foods later. Smoked salt and pepper make for great tasting burgers on a gas grill when you don't have time to mess with a smoker.


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## Jollymon (May 21, 2015)

Good smoke v bad smoke, We use to talk about that in college and High school


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## don brinson (Apr 8, 2011)

I did the same thing last week with 1 1/2 pounds of Grouper fillets.


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