OK, dumb question of the day

[TMB]

Why is it some meat will take smoke very well and others won't??

What I mean is this.......     I cooked the homemade sausage I made last weekend and use a 1/4 cup of pellets on top and under the GrillGrates.  The sausage was very good but had a LOT of smoke flavor added, where as I can use LOTS of smoke in my SRG's when cooking butts and not get near the amount of smoke even at bark level, there is just not that much smoke flavor.

now I know sausage is a lot thinner and would cook faster,  but a hunk of meat like a butt with a LOT of smoke for 4 to 5 hrs should have more flavor you would think.

Any ideas?

[Wildcat]

Generally I have found that smoke, during the cooking process, does not really penetrate very deep. With a butt, I will let it rest lightly covered on the counter until after it cools enough to handle. I will then take off the bark and set it aside. Next I will pull the pork. I then chop up the bark and mix it into the pulled pork. Most of the time my wife and I will eat some of it that evening and vacuum seal the rest in appropriate portions. We then place in fridge overnight and transfer to freezer the next day. We have always had great smoke flavor this way.

[seemore]

Tommy I think Wildcat is butt on I have smoked some pork butt and smoked the the full cook and still not a lot of smoke flavor
Scott

[tskeeter]

I think that the experience TMB is having may be affected by a few factors.  The first factor has a lot to do with the surface area to volume ratio of what he is smoking.  Sausage has a lot of surface area to collect smoke relative to the total volume of the meat.  I'd estimate the surface area of a 1/4 pound sausage at somewhere in the range of 10 square inches.  Pork butts have much less surface area compared to the volume.  The exposed surface area of 1/4 pound of pork butt (about the size of a deck of cards) would probably be somewhere around 1 1/2 - 2 square inches (I'm assuming that only one end of a deck of card size piece of meat would be exposed to the smoke).  So, you'll tend to get stronger smoke flavor from the cut of meat that has the larges surface area relative to the volume.  One of the ways to increase the surface area of a cut of meat (and absorb more smoke flavor) is to cut the meat into smaller pieces.  This has the added advantages of increasing the surface area available to form bark and, since the meat is in smaller pieces, it will cook faster.

A second factor may be differences in performance and smoking characteristics of the equipment being used.  I'm not familiar enough with the variety of equipment options available to translate the nomenclature that TMB used, but my interpretation is that he uses one piece of equipment to smoke sausage and another to smoke pork butt.

A third consideration may be the use of a rub or something similar on the pork butt.  While rubs both season the meat and help build bark, I wonder whether a piece of meat with no rub, or with the rub rinsed off the surface of the meat before smoking, would have a smokier flavor?  Anybody know for sure?

A final consideration could be the casing on the sausage.  This is pure speculation, but will sausage casings absorb smoke more readily than whole muscle cuts of meat?   

[Sailor]

I found this on the net and it seems to make sense.  It does make for a good read.  Never knew that different smoke colors had different size smoke particles. Perhaps this will shed some light on it.

http://www.genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/smokeParticles.html

[TMB]

I found this on the net and it seems to make sense.  It does make for a good read.  Never knew that different smoke colors had different size smoke particles. Perhaps this will shed some light on it.

http://www.genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/smokeParticles.html

Yes very good read indeed!    Thanks for the heads up on that well worth the time to read.

I still want to try cutting a butt up into smaller chunks just to try and see what happens 

Thanks all for you time on this one, didn't quit understand what was going on but now I do so lesson learned today  :D :D     

[hutcho]

So why do you dry sausage? I always thought the dry time was so the smoke would stick better.   I'm thinking of doing some butts here soon so I may have to experiment some with these different ideas.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2

[Habanero Smoker]

So why do you dry sausage? I always thought the dry time was so the smoke would stick better.   I'm thinking of doing some butts here soon so I may have to experiment some with these different ideas.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2

That is a misconception. Smoke adheres better to a moist surfaces, but it shouldn't be dripping wet. If you have Kutas' "Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing"; he explains the reason for air drying first. I don't have the book in front of me right now, but it is mainly to develop that mahogany color of smoked sausage. Smoke will give the sausage some color, but without air drying it first before cooking, you will get some color from the smoke, though not that dark mahogany color.

[pondee]

I found this on the net and it seems to make sense.  It does make for a good read.  Never knew that different smoke colors had different size smoke particles. Perhaps this will shed some light on it.

http://www.genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/smokeParticles.html

From the article linked:

"So what does this mean for the backyard barbecuer?

Get the smoker smoking before adding meat, and make sure the meat is cold from the fridge"

YET, all the references cited here say to bring the meat to room temp before smoking.  Which is less correct?

[TMB]

For those of you that never heard of or used an SRG they cook really fast with infrared energy reason for this thought.


I now know (well think I do) of why I can get the smoke into the butt.   When I do a normal SRG cook I start the unit out on high setting and leave it there till the smoke is rolling (using a Tommy Ring) and then add the butt. 

15 min's later I turn the SRG down to low and finish the cook that way.  Well if the infrared is doing it's job then the outer part of the butt is cooking and sealing it's self with bark and this would keep the smoke from getting passed the out layer.

Next butt will go like this....   One butt will be cooked the normal way and I'll add a second butt when the SRG is turned down to low.  Both will get pulled after sitting 2 hrs FTC then I'll compare them

Love testing,  stay tuned  :)

[tskeeter]

I found this on the net and it seems to make sense.  It does make for a good read.  Never knew that different smoke colors had different size smoke particles. Perhaps this will shed some light on it.

http://www.genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/smokeParticles.html

Yes very good read indeed!    Thanks for the heads up on that well worth the time to read.

I still want to try cutting a butt up into smaller chunks just to try and see what happens 

Thanks all for you time on this one, didn't quit understand what was going on but now I do so lesson learned today  :D :D   

That's why we're here, TMB.  To share advice and ideas.

[tskeeter]

I found this on the net and it seems to make sense.  It does make for a good read.  Never knew that different smoke colors had different size smoke particles. Perhaps this will shed some light on it.

http://www.genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/smokeParticles.html

Interesting to see some science that tends to refute some of our conventional wisdom.  Does this mean that pellicile is passe?

[Habanero Smoker]

Interesting to see some science that tends to refute some of our conventional wisdom.  Does this mean that pellicile is passe?

I haven't read that article in several years, and will have to read it again, but I recall most of his article concurs with Harold McGee.

To answer your question, developing a pellicle is still very important. I have been saying, off and on for quite a while, that moisture increases the amount of smoke that is deposited. I should have also been adding to those statements that too much moisture can lead to deposits that can make your food taste bitter, and over smoked in a very short period of time. Developing the pellicle is a way of controlling the smoke flavor. I believe if you read through Kummok's smoked salmon post (I think it is in that post) he refers to the different stages you can develop the pellicle through. For example too moist to too dry.

[tskeeter]

Thanks for the additional information, Habs.  That adds some clarity to the genuine ideas article.  Sounds like I need to reread Kummok's salmon recipe and pay special attention to his comments on pellicle development.

[hutcho]

Can you describe pellicle a little for me? I guess I dont quite get it and googling it brings up nothing.  Very wierd actually...

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2