First Ribs. . .


 
Matt H. said:
thanks. they went in pretty cold. I think mostly i need to add more wood. I was worried about oversmoking since the chicken I did before tasted pretty smokey even without the wood. I guess ribs don't absorb as much.
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Matt, actually meat doesn't "absorb" much smoke. The term is "adsorb", which means more like mainly smoke on the surface of the meat. Colder and wetter surfaces will adsorb more smoke than warmer and drier surfaces, and that's why it's good to rub the meat and put in the fridge long enough to let the meat "sweat"and get chilled again...whether the smoke ring is a priority or not. Food scientists might disagree, but that's what works for me. Your concern about smoke is well founded though. Ribs and chicken can both easily get too much smoke. Ground burger and sausage is even worse, so be careful if you ever do a meat loaf. Just tweak it a little from cook to cook though, and you'll get the flavor that you like. Again, the ribs sure looked tasty to me.
 
Oh...and there's one more thing. :) Realize that there are other factors affecting your smoke than how much wood you use. Wood type and moisture content come to mind, but one thing to avoid is letting the wood chunks catch fire before putting the lid back on. That produces pretty bad smoke for quite a while, sort of like the smoke produced from a log that is rolled away from a fire. On the other hand, some folks try pre-burning wood chunks and then putting in the ring. Let's just say it doesn't work for me and I either get bad smoke at first, or get very thin smoke that lasts no time at all. Easiest thing for a rib or chicken cook is to wait for the charcoal smoke to clear in the cooker, then load meat, and next add wood chunks.

Later,
Dave
 
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