Howdy Dave
You may have missed two details in my posting... the words
drying tendency slightly and IMHO
To elaborate a little; ... when you cook meat with hot dry air it will
trend towards drying slightly in shorter smokes...more in longer smokes, think jerky here... granted, the effect when cooking fat laced pork is minimal!
However, when you start a cook with 1-3 gals H2O, and the H2O disappears...it has
"steamed"away... Meat being cooked with smokey steam is therefore being "steamed", albeit ever so slightly ..... Using your oven example, most folks bake a turkey
coveredfor the majority of the roasting time to
maintain(not add) moisture, and uncover for some time near the end, releasing skin moisture to facilitate browning...covered meat steams slightly in some of its own moisture, reducing moisture loss (not moistening)thats why browning is inhibited. Anyway, what most say in these posts is just
opinion and that's what makes it fun...there is no absolute way of doing things here only techniques to explore and enjoy. The value of water in the pan will continue to be debated ad nausiam
...I think we can agree...this smoking meat thing is an art not a science!!