Lack of smoke flavor in my butt


 
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I got my new WSM last Thursday and waited patiently to use it on Sunday. What a thing of beauty. It was 12* outside when I started her up and the wind chill was -2*. I had sand in the pan and it averaged 235-240 for 8.5hrs in conditions that I would never think about bbqing. After 8.5hrs I went ahead and added about 14 more peices of kingsford becuase I knew I would be another 3hrs (otherwise the smoker was doing wonderful). I did 2 chickens on top along with a big chunk of bologna(awesome stuff!) and they turned out great with smokey flavor. The boston butt was on the bottom grate and stayed there the whole cook but didn't have much smoke flavor to it at all. What did I do wrong? I had three fist sized chunks of hickory and one fist sized chunk of mesq. in the charcoal when I started. The top vent was left open the whole time and all I did to the butt was bad byron's buttrub. Did water from the brined chickens on top drown the butt early on in the cook? Is the store bought hickory that I had not worth a darned? Any suggestions would be great! Sorry for the long post but I'm excited about this "machine"!
 
Brian-

Quite possibly, you just couldn't taste it. An often discovered phenomenon of q'ing is that that q'er can't taste the smoke if they partake of the food the same day because they inhale too much of it as they prepare the meal.

Try some leftovers (if you have any) and see what you think of the smoke flavor, or get input from others who had some of the pulled pork. If it's still not smokey enough for you, add one more chunk next time (I think what you had was plenty, though.)

Rich G.
 
Brian
Some folks just like more smoke than other, but like Rich said try some today and see if it isn't closer to your liking.
Jim
 
A little off your original topic here, but I feel I must add this: If you choose to do chicken low & slow, the conventional wisdom is that-- for food safety reasons-- you really don't want poultry juices dripping on other meats on the lower grate. Consider, too, that chicken really doesn't have the type of intramuscular fat and connective tissues that need low & slow cooking to break down, like butts and briskets do. A little smoke goes a long way with poultry, as well, which is why-- all things considered-- I prefer to cook poultry "high & dry" (dry water pan, that is).
 
Hi and welcome, Brian!

When you tasted the butt, did you just taste the "inside" meat? The "bark" should be very smoky with the chunks you used. However, that smoke flavor will not get into the very inside meat. Therefore, you have to mix the bark in with the inside meat.

You will find that there is enough bark to flavor that inside meat. So, mix it up good!

Glad the bologna worked out!

Finally, follow Doug's advice on chicken juice! BAAAAAAD stuff that will drip on your other food.
 
I definatley know about not being able to taste much smoke on the same day of cooking the food. But this thing hardly has any smoke flavor. I'll try it again but I was not satisfied and my wife also said it lacked the smoke flavor and I certainly ate the stuff with bark. I think next time at the very least I'll do the chicken on the bottom grate and the butt on top. Those brined chickens can hold a lot of water and I think it may have indeed washed (potentially with bad stuff) the boston butt. Either way I was very happy with the performance of the WSM. It blew away that SNP. Next weekend I'll be trying some spare ribs. Thanks for the insight.
 
Did you use the Minion method?
You may have burned up your wood to soon.
If you have several lit coals, (ie all of them or most of them) the temp under the drip pan may be to hot for the wood to smolder.

I use Jim's method and I put smokewood throughout the layer of charcoal.

On a butt I like to use six to eight chunks.
you may want to cut the hickory down and use an apple or peach eg 4 hickory and 4 apple ,peach or plum.
 
Brian
Do you remember smelling the wood during the cook?
If you did, the smoke taste/flavor is probably there. As Rich suggested, get someone who wasn't there to taste for you. I can smell the wood throughout my cooks even though I can't see smoke.

If you don't remember smelling the wood during the smoke, then it may have burned too quickly. Your quantity sounds OK, enough to get a nice smoked flavor.

Peter
 
This is the funniest topic I think I've seen here... good thing we all know what we're talking about.

I'd like to believe that ALL true bbq'ers have good smoke flaver in their butts... LOL
 
Brian
The next cook try another chunk of wood and see if that doesn't help. The condition of the wood is also a factor, if it has been down for 6 mos to
2 years is ideal. If the wood has been down to long then it will be drier and will not have the same flavor.

Tom
Injecting butts is going to kill you!
Jim
 
One other question. Did you put the butt on the WSM right out of the fridge, or did you allow it to get up to room temperature?

I have seen people say that the meat gets most of its smoke below 120 degrees. With a cold butt, there is more time for it to accept smoke than if you put it in at room temperature. Just a thought.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jon Liberman:
[qb] One other question. Did you put the butt on the WSM right out of the fridge, or did you allow it to get up to room temperature?

I have seen people say that the meat gets most of its smoke below 120 degrees. With a cold butt, there is more time for it to accept smoke than if you put it in at room temperature. Just a thought. [/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>This actually applies to the smoke ring not the smoke flavor. After what I remember to be 140f internal temp is when the smoke ring will cease to form anymore. As far as the flavor or ability to absorb more smoke flavor remains till the meat is done.
That's actually one of the biggest myths in BBQing it's seems.
 
I tried to bury 3 of the chunks down in the charcoal so that they wouldn't burn right away but they still were visable at the top of the charcoal ring (I went ahead and put the forth on top to get it started right away). The butt only sat out of the fridge for maybe 20mins. I had some of the butt this morning and it did have some more smoke flavor but it wasn't as strong as I'd like. The smoke smell was probably around for the first 3-4hrs but was not noticeable after that time frame. This was not the brand of wood chunks I prefer to use (as walmart isn't real stocked up this time of year). Maybe next time I'll cut the chunks in half and put a couple of those on the very bottom of the pile. If that doesn't work, I'll just add a chunk or two more after 4hrs but that won't be possible when I do my first all nighter within the next month. Thanks for the tips!
 
Brian a couple of things come to mind. I also like a nice smoke flavor , sometimes more than most. to achieve that I hit my pork with smoke right when I put it on and then some times asdd a little to the top of the fire fter a couple of hours. Secondly since the bark is where most of it is going to be contained you may want to have you butts cut in half so you have more surface area to give you more bark.

hope that helps!!
 
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