00:00:00:00 - 00:00:07:18 Speaker 1 Your resume is good in numbers given to give more people.

00:00:07:18 - 00:00:30:00 Speaker 1 You're listening to the Barbecue Nerds podcast, where smoked meat science and flavor is our favorite experiment. Hey, barbecue lovers, I'm David, your resident pitmaster and science geek, along with my co-host Frank. We're diving deep into the world of barbecue where tradition meets innovation. Now let's get to today's episode.

00:00:30:00 - 00:00:34:04 Speaker 1 You know, somebody had just texted me because we were talking about,

00:00:34:04 - 00:00:38:07 Speaker 1 creosote and chimneys. In fact, she. Even Carlton here in our chat had,

00:00:38:07 - 00:00:55:19 Speaker 1 just thrown the word creosote. So someone just texted me here and was asking the question, can you use one of those those cleaning logs for creosote that you find at your big box stores inside the firebox of your offset in order to eliminate the creosote?

00:00:55:21 - 00:01:14:16 Speaker 1 That would build up inside your cook chamber and inside your chimney and you know what? That even comes upon the point here where where whole Joe Barbecue is asking the same question, what's the best way to clean the inside of the smoke stack? So if you haven't seen these, these logs that go into your fireplace in your home to be able to clean out.

00:01:14:18 - 00:01:16:07 Speaker 1 Yeah. So they.

00:01:16:07 - 00:01:18:17 Speaker 2 They sell, they're seen in newspapers here where.

00:01:18:20 - 00:01:18:23 Speaker 1 They

00:01:18:23 - 00:01:20:09 Speaker 1 use kerosene newspapers.

00:01:20:10 - 00:01:26:04 Speaker 2 My grandpa always did scared me to death. Flames shooting out the smokestack.

00:01:26:04 - 00:01:46:17 Speaker 1 That's correct. Yeah. But there's just there's this there's a log. I've seen this thing before. I remember the name of the company that has this. And you find this out a lot of big box stores, sometimes grocery stores have them as well. You put the log into your into the chimney in your fireplace, and it's supposed to be able to to burn up and clean out the creosote.

00:01:46:19 - 00:01:47:22 Speaker 1 I don't know if this is a.

00:01:48:00 - 00:01:48:19 Speaker 2 Safe.

00:01:48:20 - 00:01:53:06 Speaker 1 Item that you can put into the firebox of an offset to be able to do the same.

00:01:53:08 - 00:02:14:20 Speaker 2 Well, the difference is, is that your your wood furnace or your fireplace is direct vented out of the firebox. Right. That's the difference. So you're going to have super hot, super hot air right there. And you know it's going to be direct venting in our case. Like the firebox on an offset smoker is offset away from the fire, the smokestack.

00:02:14:20 - 00:02:22:18 Speaker 2 So I don't know that it would work the same. I would be interested to learn more about this though. I've I've never seen that.

00:02:22:18 - 00:02:27:00 Speaker 2 Of course I don't burn wood for heat, so that's probably why. But

00:02:27:00 - 00:02:34:10 Speaker 2 but you know, as far as that goes, the best way to clean your stack is just to clean it frequently and use some kind of a brush if you can.

00:02:34:12 - 00:02:35:05 Speaker 2 I know that,

00:02:35:05 - 00:02:38:17 Speaker 2 like, a lot of these barbecue restaurants these days, they,

00:02:38:17 - 00:02:49:07 Speaker 2 they were they don't want the folding stack so that they can move their pit around and stuff. They want the folding stack so they can fold it down. They can clean it easy with the big brush.

00:02:49:10 - 00:02:50:04 Speaker 1 That makes sense.

00:02:50:04 - 00:02:54:00 Speaker 2 Like a chimney sweep brush. You know, that's that's what I'm starting to hear.

00:02:54:00 - 00:03:05:21 Speaker 2 But the chimney sweep brush is usually got, like, some kind of resin beads on the outside of the bristles. Right. So you get a really good one and it'll actually, like, hone and clean a little bit.

00:03:05:21 - 00:03:08:03 Speaker 2 Oh, here. 106 Rodi said

00:03:08:03 - 00:03:10:19 Speaker 2 der a log must be what it is.

00:03:10:19 - 00:03:18:18 Speaker 1 The product and another name is a CSL. The crew sweeping log just pulled it out because I was kind of curious about it.

00:03:18:18 - 00:03:24:12 Speaker 2 Yeah, I'd be interested to learn more about. I've never heard of it before. That's. That's kind of a cool idea.

00:03:24:12 - 00:03:28:11 Speaker 2 But as far as the way that I clean stacks is, I usually,

00:03:28:11 - 00:03:29:18 Speaker 2 I usually use a,

00:03:29:18 - 00:03:33:05 Speaker 2 just one of those brushes or something like that, or,

00:03:33:05 - 00:03:44:17 Speaker 2 I'll scrape it with, like, a piece of strap, like steel strap or something, because I got that laying around, you know, I got it out on the steel rack, you know, I'll just take it and just take a piece and jab down in there.

00:03:44:17 - 00:03:46:13 Speaker 2 But I do it frequently enough,

00:03:46:13 - 00:03:54:12 Speaker 2 with the power washer that I really don't have to deal with that that much. Especially if you make sure your wood's dry when you put it on the fit and don't. And clean your pit frequently.

00:03:54:17 - 00:03:56:23 Speaker 1 Right. So that's the.

00:03:56:23 - 00:04:20:18 Speaker 2 Catch is like, we get done cooking. We just worked our butt off and we're tired. Like, I cooked 14 hours yesterday on that video. And I didn't even care that the stuff was not rendered all the way it was, I was done. I want to go to bed, you know. Now. Just kidding. But, you know, I mean, we just don't want to go out there and clean the pit, so we're gonna have to do it another day.

00:04:20:18 - 00:04:29:02 Speaker 2 We're gonna have to wait till it's warm again or fire the pit up. You know, there's all that going on. I like it here, Bob said.

00:04:29:02 - 00:04:42:01 Speaker 2 Bob McKinley said, as bad as it sounds at brush word, absolutely. That would work fine. You just got to have a long enough pole to stick it down in there. You know, you could stick it inside a piece of PVC pipe and duct tape it.

00:04:42:06 - 00:04:43:15 Speaker 2 That's what red green would do.

00:04:43:15 - 00:04:45:07 Speaker 2 You know what red green show is?

00:04:45:09 - 00:04:52:12 Speaker 1 I don't know the red green show. What? No, dude, what is the red green show? It sounds like it's like a it's,

00:04:52:12 - 00:04:54:12 Speaker 1 Like the red light green light type of stick.

00:04:54:12 - 00:04:55:17 Speaker 2 On the ice.

00:04:55:19 - 00:04:56:13 Speaker 1 What is it from?

00:04:56:13 - 00:05:01:10 Speaker 2 Dude, I'm not even gonna tell you. That's your assignment for tonight. Red.

00:05:01:10 - 00:05:01:19 Speaker 1 Green.

00:05:01:20 - 00:05:06:03 Speaker 2 I learned about the red green show. I'll wreck your. You'll wreck your rest of your life, man.

00:05:06:03 - 00:05:09:14 Speaker 2 The barbecue is one of my favorite episodes.

00:05:09:14 - 00:05:10:20 Speaker 2 The best barbecue.

00:05:10:22 - 00:05:12:05 Speaker 1 What about it? You know, you you.

00:05:12:05 - 00:05:15:08 Speaker 2 Car that drives itself is a great one to go ahead. You.

00:05:15:13 - 00:05:17:01 Speaker 1 You mentioned using a,

00:05:17:01 - 00:05:39:05 Speaker 1 like a long pole or something to be able to clean out the chimney. What about these things that they have for the dryer vents that you attach to your cordless screw, cordless drill, and you get in there and and it on one end, it's spinning. It goes all the way around. So I'm thinking whether you have a four inch chimney, five inch chimney, six inch, well, six inch might be a little excessive, but at least up to a five inch chimney.

00:05:39:05 - 00:05:42:06 Speaker 1 You can get in there and work it up and down,

00:05:42:06 - 00:05:54:05 Speaker 1 to be able to pull this stuff out. And obviously whatever falls down into the smoke collector area, you're able to open up your pit, pull back your grates and be able to to scoop out of there.

00:05:54:05 - 00:05:57:17 Speaker 1 Again, back to the shop vac. Suck. Suck it all out of there.

00:05:57:19 - 00:06:01:10 Speaker 2 Yep. It's exactly. Yeah. And, you know,

00:06:01:10 - 00:06:13:13 Speaker 2 this is an interesting thought here, too. You know, when with these new offset designs that we do, you're cooking with your damper closed half way, at least most of the time on these offsets to give it that,

00:06:13:13 - 00:06:21:22 Speaker 2 to give it that restriction at the exit of the stack. So you get the velocity for your draw, but you don't lose all the volume in your chamber.

00:06:22:02 - 00:06:27:20 Speaker 2 Learn more about all that. There's a whole engineering course on smoker builder. You about pit engineering.

00:06:27:20 - 00:06:29:22 Speaker 2 But anyway, talking about that,

00:06:29:22 - 00:06:32:17 Speaker 2 that actually encourages,

00:06:32:17 - 00:06:48:12 Speaker 2 the volume of air to, to not move as much volume out with our draw because draw is velocity, not volume. So then you wind up, if your wood is wet, you're going to have more build up from that,

00:06:48:12 - 00:06:52:15 Speaker 2 condensation inside the stack, especially if you're cooking at lower temperatures.

00:06:52:15 - 00:06:54:05 Speaker 2 Like I'm thinking about the bar method.

00:06:54:05 - 00:06:56:08 Speaker 2 Everybody's heard about that these days.

00:06:56:08 - 00:07:06:00 Speaker 2 Where where they're cooking with that, the way they do it. Low and slow brisket starting out like a 180 is what they're doing for so many hours. And,

00:07:06:00 - 00:07:11:02 Speaker 2 running that pit like that on hyper loaded with fuel for five hours, six hours, whatever.

00:07:11:04 - 00:07:13:13 Speaker 2 I would be very curious

00:07:13:13 - 00:07:16:09 Speaker 2 how that affects the cleanliness of the stack.

00:07:16:09 - 00:07:30:00 Speaker 2 Running your pit like that, because I think the inside of your pit even gets quite a bit of that on there, which you were talking about earlier, is that, you know, like you got to be able to get up in there and clean the lid off the inside of your offset.

00:07:30:02 - 00:07:43:00 Speaker 2 Like, I can't tell you how many times I've picked up inside of somebody's offset. And there's like, all this flaky stuff hanging from inside where the air's been running along the top up there, and it's all crispy, cratered and dried, and it's just like,

00:07:43:00 - 00:07:50:04 Speaker 2 you know, whatever was in the Airstream, flaky up there. It's not oily like airborne grease that's floating around in there.

00:07:50:06 - 00:08:00:18 Speaker 2 And so you got to scrub that with a brush power wash or something like that and get all that off there, or it's going to land in your food as you're cooking. That's what the black flakes are on your brisket that you're like, where did that come from?

00:08:00:22 - 00:08:20:20 Speaker 1 I can't tell you how many times I've been to people's homes. And this is you know, you have to understand that the prudent individual, the average person thinks that is black paint on the inside that's peeling off from inside their cooker because they over fired it. And I've had to explain to people before you cook anything before we do anything today.

00:08:20:20 - 00:08:42:11 Speaker 1 And this is, you know, neighbors and friends, you need to scrape all that out. That's not cool. We're not scraping the paint from inside. That's all built up like you used the word earlier. Particulates. All of that is going to end up in your food. That's left over from previous cooks that just built up and built up and built up.

00:08:42:13 - 00:08:53:05 Speaker 1 We've got to get all that scaling off before you do anything else. Today. Let's just spend a half hour, scrape it down, wipe it down and then we can start fresh.

00:08:53:07 - 00:09:02:09 Speaker 2 And so so here's the catch. This is the clinker. The cleaner your pit is, the better your barbecue will be.

00:09:02:09 - 00:09:10:21 Speaker 2 Every time consistency is the key. So like in competition barbecue. That's why you see these guys taking their drums apart and or driveways

00:09:10:21 - 00:09:13:11 Speaker 2 heavy oven degreaser on everything.

00:09:13:11 - 00:09:22:02 Speaker 2 Oven cleaner, power washing it down, getting it all clean. Because because at that point now they're not depending on the last cook to flavor the new cook.

00:09:22:02 - 00:09:23:06 Speaker 2 I laugh about that.

00:09:23:06 - 00:09:43:13 Speaker 2 But, you know, it's just to me it's just like, ding, okay, well, I'm trying so hard to make my best barbecue. You know, I should start with a level playing field and like have the same shot every time for myself. So that's another reason to clean your pit. You know something else, though, that Eric asked earlier in the conversation?

00:09:43:13 - 00:09:45:02 Speaker 2 Can meats barbecue?

00:09:45:02 - 00:09:45:15 Speaker 2 Team

00:09:45:15 - 00:09:53:14 Speaker 2 he was asking about how to get rid of the rust that's on the expanded metal. So part of this cleaning process is the rust. And,

00:09:53:14 - 00:10:06:02 Speaker 2 first of all, let's let's discuss, like, what rust should I be worried about? Is all rust bad? Right. So in my opinion, surface rust is not a problem.

00:10:06:02 - 00:10:08:06 Speaker 2 Like if you watched the video,

00:10:08:06 - 00:10:15:02 Speaker 2 that I published last week on the Smoke Slinger YouTube channel with an all new Liberty 94. I'm so proud of that pit. Aren't you proud of that pit?

00:10:15:03 - 00:10:18:08 Speaker 1 I certainly am, I love that I got one.

00:10:18:10 - 00:10:22:08 Speaker 2 You got one too, right away. So true story.

00:10:22:08 - 00:10:40:21 Speaker 2 We cooked on one of the pre-production models in Miami, and Dustin sent an extra set of grates because he wasn't sure that the round bar cooking grates. We're going to be air quotes, kosher or not. And so he sent an extra set of grates. We wound up being able to use the round bar cooking grates.

00:10:40:23 - 00:10:53:21 Speaker 2 I threw the other ones in the bed of my truck, hauled them all the way home from Florida in the pouring down rain, and then they got snowed on and iced on and everything else in the bed of my truck. Then I drove down to Texas, worked with Dustin, and wound up,

00:10:53:21 - 00:10:56:21 Speaker 2 picking up that pit. I was like, oh dude, I already got some cooking grates.

00:10:56:23 - 00:11:12:08 Speaker 2 So they were all surface rusty, my Grace, where I didn't even realize it until I was doing the video. And then I looked inside that also, it rained all the way home. So that pit was a rust ball when I got home, right? So I had to clean that rust off the surface, rust off.

00:11:12:08 - 00:11:20:22 Speaker 2 That's why it was so beautiful, that black, that satin black finish on that mill scale was because I cleaned it with the nylon brush.

00:11:21:00 - 00:11:21:18 Speaker 2 But anyway,

00:11:21:18 - 00:11:35:07 Speaker 2 surface rust doesn't hurt anything at all. It's totally okay to cook right on it. The only time rust is a bad thing is what it's going to flake off and get in your food. That's when we get into that delamination.

00:11:35:07 - 00:11:39:00 Speaker 2 When things become they start to peel apart like that.

00:11:39:00 - 00:11:45:13 Speaker 2 Anyway, so whatever you see that if you really want it to be cleaned off, it's totally okay to clean it off.

00:11:45:13 - 00:11:49:02 Speaker 2 It's a pain in the rear. I don't think it's worth all the effort.

00:11:49:02 - 00:11:53:05 Speaker 2 If you notice in the video I just sprayed Pam on it and it was gone.

00:11:53:05 - 00:11:59:03 Speaker 2 Instantly disappeared. Right? So it's totally okay. Don't freak out about surface rust.

00:11:59:03 - 00:12:06:13 Speaker 2 So when you're cooking cleaning your cooking grates, you power wash everything. It's going to flash rust when the water dries out.

00:12:06:15 - 00:12:09:00 Speaker 2 It's nature. That's what's going to happen.

00:12:09:00 - 00:12:19:16 Speaker 2 Don't worry about it. Just like oil it. You're good to go. It's an indicator that it's clean. If it does that and there's no oil buildup on it from the last nasty cookie.

00:12:19:16 - 00:12:20:01 Speaker 1 Did

00:12:20:01 - 00:12:41:04 Speaker 1 I tell people all the time, do not take sandpaper and think you're going to sand that off. That's not ferrous oxide where you're getting that orange rust on your food or on your hands. It's just surface rust. Once you hit it with a little bit of oil, the same way that you would with a cast iron pan, it all goes away.

00:12:41:06 - 00:12:55:16 Speaker 1 Yeah. And if you feel like you need to get that that little bit of orange off, take a paper towel, rub it down, then put some oil on to a fresh piece of paper towel and put that on and you'll see. You'll clean it right up and you'll get that

00:12:55:16 - 00:12:59:23 Speaker 1 nice luster, that nice sheen back on, especially when you heat it up.

00:12:59:23 - 00:13:24:05 Speaker 1 That's a wrap for today's episode of the Barbecue Nerds podcast, where smoked meats, science, and flavor always comes first. This episode is brought to you by Smoke Slinger, the craftsman behind some of the best barbecue pits and offset smokers in the game. Whether you're a backyard warrior or a pro, Pitmaster smoke slinger builds custom pits designed to help you cook your best barbecue ever.

00:13:24:07 - 00:13:44:10 Speaker 1 Visit Smoke slinger.com to see their lineup and bring competition quality smoke to your own backyard. A big shout out to smoke slinger fueling our passion and keeping the smoke rolling strong. And as always, keep those pits hot, the smoke rolling and stay nerdy about barbecue.