Smoke query

[jr07]

Hello all. New guy here
I recently purchased a Napolino 70 wbo from Forno Bravo, with great success making pizzas

One thing I have noticed is that in the ealry stags of firing up my oven an incredible amount of smoke comes out from the oven door and the oven chimney, which is going to "waste" . Yesterday I left my iphone sitting on the prep table I have next to the oven and today it has had an amazing smoked smell all day! I need to accomplish this with food

So.....

1. I suppose I need to leave either my meat or fish inside the oven as soon as I start the firing process? Should I cover the chimney to avoid smoke escaping through there?

2. Do i close the oven door too? I understand that will not allow the fire to burn but will the smoke be better captured?

3. Some people burn the fire and then add smoking chips to the resulting coals. Is this better? And do I do 1. And 2. Also?

J

[Gulf]

It sounds like your wood may be a little too green or damp.You may also be oveloading the oven with wood at the beginning. That thick smoke that you see in the early stages may be waisted fuel for the fire but, it is not waisted smoke for preparing human food. It has a lot of nasty stuff in it (creosote for one) that will make the food taiste bad and wont add any years to your life either. The smoke that you want is from hardwood that has gotten to an extreme temp, the nasties have burned off, and is almost to a pure carbon stage. That is called "sweet blue" smoke. It is almost invisible.

Try starting with a smaller fire and gettiing a small coal bed before ramping up the fire. One thing that I do when I am in a hurry to get things going is to start some lump charcoal (not charcoal brickettes) in a charcoal chimney. Some times it is bought lump charcoal. Much of the time it is char that I reclaimed from the oven.

1, don't
2, don't
3, I've tried it extensively. I'm not a fan of smoking in the wfo.

[jr07]

Thank you!

[fox]

I have dedicated my oven to smoking several times and it worked really well.
Sort of warm smoking rather that hot or cold smoking... I use the area below the chimney exit to place food on a rack, light a BBQ brickett fire in the centre of the cold oven & place damp wood over the white coals.
I use a piece of plywood over the oven entrance & that is it!
You will need to add wood & bricketts as necessary depending what you want to smoke.
I have only smoked fish so far but anything that fits in the entrance area of the oven will be smoked really well.

[RandyJ]

For smoking in the WFO I know Mrchipster had build a door with a smoke pistol built in to is so just residual heat and smoke added. I have not asked him how it has been working but I would think fine

Randy