Smoke Ring


 
N

Nick Matthews

TVWBB Member
On my last couple of practice cooks and a competition last week I have not been able to get a smoke ring on my briskets. I am cooking it on my 22 WSM at 275 with sand in the water bowl and a foil pain filled with water on the lower grate. I have been using 8 chunks of hickory and apple(4 of each) with Kingsford. Does anyone have any ideas I can try?
 
Silly question on my part but are you spritzing? How do you place or meat in the smoker; direct from cooler or allowed rested at room temp?
 
I have not been spritzing. Usually I take the brisket out of the fridge when I am starting the smoker and season/inject it at that point also. I take about an hour from lighting the chimney till the smoker temp has evened out.
 
Nick Matthews said:
I have not been spritzing. Usually I take the brisket out of the fridge when I am starting the smoker and season/inject it at that point also. I take about an hour from lighting the chimney till the smoker temp has evened out.
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I'd start there. Try to keep the surface moist after the crust sets.

You trying some fats off as well (not the fact cap)?
 
Mac LA said:
I'd start there. Try to keep the surface moist after the crust sets.

You trying some fats off as well (not the fact cap)?
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I typically trim almost all of the outer surface fat off, including the fat cap. Since I started buying the primes from Cosco the marbling in the meat seems to be enough fat.
 
Nick,

For KCBS, the smoke ring means absolutely nothing !!! We judges can not take a smoke ring into account when scoring since the smoke ring can be create artificially.

With the above in mind, the brisket surface need to meet certain criteria (if you will...) before it will accept the oxides of nitrogen. When trimming, do you also remove the silver skin ? If you coat the brisket with something liquid when applying rub, make sure it is not a fat nor oil. Brisket needs to be 'wet' to absorb the oxides of nitrogen. Keeping the meat as cold as possible will lengthen the time the nitrogen oxides can do their stuff... will increase the size, thickness, of the ring.

If you are of the assumption that without a smoke ring, your brisket will not do well... then you are mistaken. First and foremost... Cook it properly and to perfect (if there is such a thing) tenderness. Everything else will fall in line...
 
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In KCBS I've found that smoke ribg really doesn't help appearance scores. My last entry you could hardly see the smoke ring bc of the au jus and sauce i applied to the slices. Got all 9s in appearance that day.

The biggest thing I've found is to keep the brisket as cold as possible (less than 40* if possible) before you put it on the WSM. This has helped me get a smoke ring every time.

Good luck out there!
 
Thanks for the tips. While it may not matter for appearance scoring it has just been bugging me and if a couple of small tweeks in the process with help then I'm all for trying them out.
 
So I agree. Try spraying with water once you are a few hours into the smoking when the crust has started. And keep doing so every 30-60 min. It is also my personal belief that the rub you use can make a big difference. Some rubs out there may taste great but give your meat an anemic look and no smoke ring. And yes, smoke ring doesn't matter but I do take pride in having one on my bbq.
 
I think there's something to be said with the meat being wet. Consider using a "slurry" to your brisket before applying your rub. Harry Soo uses 4 Tblspn of Beef Paste Concentrate with 4 Tblspn of Worcestershire sauce. It is possible to get a ring with injection. Here's an example of I a cook I used KBB with Kosmos with Harry's slurry...

 
I also have a really hard time with smoke rings on the WSM. I'm not a competition guy but I want one. Anytime someone has a good one on the Photo forum, you can bet you get some nice comments. Even if I know in my heart it doesn't matter, it doesn't affect taste etc., I still want one. I've not had any trouble getting it on my offset. The WSM seems to have some trouble in this area. It's so efficient that maybe the air flow just isn't there? It also seems like the better I've gotten at controlling my fire the worse the smoke ring has gotten. My best briskets hardly have any smoke ring at all. A huge part of it is not trimming off the fat cap. Sorry, it adds too much flavor. I'm definitely not going to OCD over silver skin. If I was competing I definitely would. Sorry, I'll go back over to the regular barbecue forum where I belong!
 
I've not had much trouble getting a smoke ring on my WSMs. One thing I do is make sure the meat is being put onto the pit as cold as possible. That seems to help with the smoke ring
 
Hey Mac LA - I have not taken Harry's class but I certainly would love to. I'm pretty diligent about reading his blogs and he's very specific on how to cook using WSM; technique, flavor profiles, crust development, etc. He certainly doesn't share all of his secrets but my scores have improved tremendously since I've followed some of his basics techniques. Plus, I don't think he uses the slurry all of the time, based on what I've read he might only use it when he's cooking comps in south...
 
If I'm doing a smoke I try to leave the meat in the fridge as long as possible. Most of the time the meat probe reads about 45°F - 50°F when I assemble the smoker. I usually get a pretty good smoke ring. I know this doesn't effect the taste at all, but it looks nice. The fat cap will have an effect on the smoke ring, so I usually trim it off IF the meat is adequately marbled.

Edit: The last boneless pork shoulder I done I left the fat cap on and didn't get a pronounced smoke ring as usual.
 
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Well, quick update. I cooked a brisket this weekend and made a few changes. 1. I put the meat on cold this time. I'm not sure this made a huge difference. It's probably the difference between putting it on at 40 degrees vs maybe 59 degrees, but it probably did something. 2. I used the water pan. I know some people are adverse to this, but maybe you can get away with a small one to the side instead of using the wsm pan? 3. I took the advice of Donna Fong and made sure to keep the meat spritzed. I really didn't have to do it that often. I just had the meat spritzed at the beginning and checked it a few more times and it was good I wrapped in butcher paper once the bark set. 4. I paid more attention to the silver skin despite myself.

I got a much better smoke ring than I usually get. It wasn't very deep. The spritzing and added humidity were probably the biggest factors. I probably changed too many variables at once to say for certain.
 
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