Bad Flavor


 
M

Michael W

New member
I did some ribs this past weekend. All I did was put some salt and pepper on. Just a light application. They did not taste good. I also didn't put that much wood on. One chunk of hickory and two chunks cherry. It just didn't taste good to me (or smell that good cooking). What does Creosote taste like? Does it have a smell? I've noticed this with past cooks also. Could my WSM need a good cleaning? I'm just not getting a nice smokey flavor. I wish I could describe it better... Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Mike
 
Michael.
You need to need to describe how you start up your WSM, and what your choice of fuel is.
With that, comes many answers.
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Tim
 
Hi Tim,

I fired it up with the minion method. charcoal ring 3/4full of unlit Maple Leaf lump and 3/4 chimney full of lit on top. Tossed the wood on and assembled it. Cooked about 275-300.
 
Sounds to me like a case of bad meat. It happened to me awhile ago, 2 chucks. I was noticing an off aroma, when I opened the foil a downright bad smell...tossed them out.
 
Don't think it was bad meat. I'm actually positive the meat was ok. I've noticed the smell quite a bit while cooking. It's not awful or anything, just not a nice smoky smell/taste.
 
have you changed anything ? maybe change one thing at a time and see. for me it would be to much smoke. what size are the chunks ?
 
Originally posted by Michael W:
I wish I could describe it better... Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Mike
Click to expand...
Ya, describe it better. No just kidding.
You say it's not a bad smell, just not good smoke flavor. Were your wood chunks large or puny? You say you used 1 hickory and 2 cherry. Cherry is mild and will not give much of a smoke flavor to ribs. Hickory will, but you only used 1 piece. If it's a simple matter of more smoke flavor, use 2 or 3 decent sized chunks of hickory. Keep adjusting the amount and kind of wood you use until you get the smoke flavor you are looking for. Maybe try hickory alone or along with apple or maple. Maybe try some pecan. I seriously doubt cleaning your smoker will help this issue. I've had my smoker about 2 years and the only cleaning I've done, other than cleaning the cooking grates, was to scrape the inside wall of the middle section and brush out the lid every once in a while. JMO Another thought just crossed my mind. Do you close the vents all the way sometimes to get a temp you want? The top too maybe sometimes? If so, don't. Leave that top vent open for ventilation. Like I said, just a thought. Again JMO
 
I've had a bad bag of lump before that had tar residue on a bunch of the charcoal. Smelled like asphalt burning. Or maybe it was a stray piece of plastic or something in the lump, green or bad wood chunks. It happens.
 
Used one hickory that was fairly large (a fist and a half) and two smaller cherry chunks. Top vent was open 100% all the time. I did tap the bottoms all to about 50% to bring down the temp.
 
if your using lump you really need to inspect it and sort each bag as the charcoal lump companies dont really care what goes in their bags. the couple of times i have tried lump i have always found some sort of non-charcoal trash in the bags. the first time i used lump it nearly ruined my OTS 22" kettle as there was a large chunk of plastic in it.

another go after that there was a large piece of filter material in a bag and i had to toss a load of burgers when it finally caught. it turned the burgers a dark greenish colour and smelled like what you described.

i had to do a very high temp burn in my kettle to cleanse it. i would suggest the same thing for your WSM. i gave up on lump because having to sort each bag to pick out the trash was a pain in the butt. some of the trash rocks and whatnots look exactly like lump so you pretty much have to handle each piece to make sure.

anyway if you continue using lump i would highly recomend a sort proccess. i choose to stick with kingsford as there is no difference in taste between lump and briquettes that i can detect.
 
Your smoke wood amount should be fine - I did ribs this weekend with a chuck of pecan and two chunks of apple, and I liked the amount of smoke flavor that I got. I assume that your wood is nice solid, cured wood and that you are reasonably sure that it really is cherry and hickory? If yes, then try a different charcoal brand and see how it works for you. Maybe do your next cook as something cheap like chicken so that you don't wreck a premium item like ribs.
 
Based on the above, I'm blaming the smoke wood. Could it have been sitting in a damp area or stored in closed plastic bags? It can get funky that way.

OW I would be pointing at bad meat.

Lump can get wet and still be dried and used without a problem or bad taste. In my experience anyway. Unlike briquettes.


But hey what I really think is that ALL of you bags of Maple Leaf lump are BAD. Send them all to me and I will take care of that for you
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Maple Leaf Lump gets a solid review from the Whiz, so it must be your smoke wood as Ray pointed out. If your wood is sound, maybe try chunking it to 2 by 2 by 3" pcs. ( or smaller )
Its a cleaner burn and you should get out of the white and into the thin blue smoke ( which we like ) in about 30 min.
Hope that helps
Tim
 
3/4 chimney of lit seems like a lot for a MM start to me, how soon do you have to turn back the vents to keep your temp from getting to high? If you're starting with to big a fire and have to choke it to much to maintain temp it won't burn as clean.
 
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