How to Set Up your BBQ for Easy Smoking

Plenty of people have told me they want to buy a big offset smoker to create those gorgeous, tender low & slow ribs or get a perfect smoke ring on their brisket, but it's not necessary!

I'll show you how to set up your basic kettle BBQ for for either low & slow or hot & fast smoking using just lumpwood charcoal and smoking wood chunks. As an added bonus, you can use the same method for roasting!

Grilling on your BBQ is great for getting that amazing sear on a steak, making some banging smash burgers or levelling up the taste and texture of your veggies.

However, smoking your food also infuses the flavours from the wood smoke which elevates and changes the taste of your food, especially meat. Smoking with cherry wood for example, will add a subtle sweetness to white meats, whereas smoking with oak wood will give your beef a stronger, smokier flavour.

Smoking low & slow also makes your meat incredibly tender and makes it last longer - smoking was traditionally used as a form of food preservation.

Yes, you can use lumpwood charcoal for smoking on your kettle BBQ. 

I know that low & slow smoking is normally associated with charcoal briquettes, but if you want to cook without chemicals, you can smoke for 5 - 6 hours on your kettle BBQ without opening the lid, with our restaurant grade, lumpwood charcoal using the 'snake method'.

The snake method involves creating a 'snake' of unlit charcoal and smoking wood chunks around the edge of your BBQ, and just lighting one end. This allows the fire to spread through the charcoal and smoking wood chunks, giving a long, slow charcoal burn and consistent wood smoke to add flavour to your food.

If you want to try the snake method to set up your BBQ for easy smoking, we recommend watching the full 3 minute video to see the process.

However, if you prefer a step by step guide, here it is!

Remove the cooking grate and fill your small chimney starter to the top with lumpwood charcoal, or fill to around one third of the way if you're using a large chimney starter.

If you have any old lumpwood charcoal left in your BBQ from your previous cook, if's absolutely fine to use that.

Pour some new lumpwood charcoal onto the charcoal grate. How much charcoal you need depends on how long you're planning on smoking your food for, but don't forget, if you use too much you can put it out at the end and use it next time.

Pull the lumpwood charcoal to the edge of one side of the BBQ where it will form an arc or 'snake' shape. Move the charcoal around as needed to give your snake a consistent thickness.

Get your chimney starter lit - place a Natural Firelighter on the charcoal grate (away from the charcoal), light it using matches then place the full chimney starter on top. Leave the lid off your BBQ and open the vents to give the charcoal in your chimney starter plenty of airflow.

The charcoal is ready to tip out of the chimney starter when you see the coals glowing red about 3/4 of the way up, but before flames start shooting out of the top. Depending on the charcoal you're using, it should take roughly 5 minutes.

Tip the lumpwood charcoal out of the chimney starter against one end of your charcoal 'snake' but away from the other, so you have a lovely hot fire at one end. This will allow the fire to propagate slowly around the snake. 

Add the first smoking wood chunk to the active fire on the lit charcoal, so it lights and starts smoking straight away. Then space another two to three smoking wood chunks on the unlit charcoal, which will start to smoke as the fire moves around, giving you continuous wood smoke to add flavour to your food.

Put the cooking grate and the lid back on and move the temperature probe to the opposite side of the BBQ from the active fire.

Use the vents to control the airflow and therefore the burn rate of the charcoal. The more open the vents, the more air can flow into the BBQ and the faster the charcoal will burn.

I half close my top vent and almost fully close my bottom vents until I see the temperature start to drop, then open them up to the right point to stabilise it.

Once your BBQ reaches the right temperature, you're ready to start smoking!

For low & slow, we want to smoke at around 110°c. You can either measure that with a pit probe or aim for around 150°c on the BBQ lid thermometer.

For hot & fast, we want to smoke at around 150°c. You can either measure that with a pit probe or aim for around 180°c on the BBQ lid thermometer.

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