Acrid-burnt smell?

[DEMAN]

Wondering if any of you have come across the same problem I have found, and what the cure may be.

Got my BS about a month ago. Did a brisket the first weekend (after curing the BS)using hickory and found the smoke flavor was kinda overpowering and had a funny smell to it...kinda like something burnt. Next was a pork butt and I shortened the smoking time and it seemed fine but still had that slightly burnt smell to it.. just not that noticable after the vinigar sauce goes on it. Yesterday I smoked a block of cheddar cheese with "special blend" and it was terrible so I tried a gouda with "apple" and it tastes awesome...but there is still that hint of something burnt. Tonight I have company comming and have eight full racks of back ribs that sat in apple cider vineger for 8 hours and are now rubbed and ready for the smoker...obviously I am hoping they turn out well.
 
I spent the morning wiping the inside of the unit with warm water, wire brushing the puck heater and running all the racks etc. through the dish washer then re-curing the smoker, hoping this may fix the problem.

Has anyone else run into this problem and am I on the right track with the cure?

[Cold Smoke]

Deman, I've not had anything come out tasting burned yet. Not too sure what would cause that. All I can suggest is to make sure you've got water in the bowl to extinguish those pucks once they're done smoking. Hope those ribs turn out nice- you'd hate to have waste all those tasty baby backs.

Good luck.

Cold Smoke

[DEMAN]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Cold Smoke</i>
<br />Deman, I've not had anything come out tasting burned yet. Not too sure what would cause that. All I can suggest is to make sure you've got water in the bowl to extinguish those pucks once they're done smoking. Hope those ribs turn out nice- you'd hate to have waste all those tasty baby backs.

Good luck.

Cold Smoke
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Ya know... I had a funny feeling the discarded pucks may have had something to do with this. I noticed with the first recipe that after a half dozen or so pucks had hit the water, the next pucks piled up on top of the others and were at least partially out of the water. Seems this was when I first noticed the funny smell...sorta a soggy burnt smell. Maybe the smell permeated the smoker and was passed on to other foods in the future? If so...maybe the thorough cleaning I gave it this AM will help. My ribs hope so [:D]
Thanks for the input Cold Smoke

[nsxbill]

I have pretty much made it a practice to only smoke my ribs, brisket, etc. for max of four hours.  Then, I just return to the smoker, rotate the meat and get that door closed asap to get the temp back up.  The water pan easily holds that many, and I just dump the ashes and water when I am through cooking and the meat comes out.  

I did one smoke for about 8 hours with mesquite, and got that burnt flavor too.  I now know how much smoke I like, and limit the pucks to only 4 hours.

The BBQ-Guru lets me walk away from the smoker after that and just wait until the meat reaches the target internal temp.

Bill

[MallardWacker]

D,

One thing you will find out is that the SMOKE will taste different IF you are use to a bullet or off-set type smoker.  The way BS generates it smoke, at such a low temp does make woods like Mesquite (the devil's wood) and hickory more pronounced.  BUT, it is completely consistent, doesn't change much and is very predictable.  Bill is right, I'm with him, only use about 4hrs of smoke.  I only use 3 on my BACON.  I use to be a Hickory Monger, until kirk  and couple others talked me into Maple and Pecan.  The only thing I use Hickory for is vegetables and I don't EVEN think of using mesquite, I save that for grilli'n.

SmokeOn,

mski
Perryville, Arkansas
Wooo-Pig-Soooie

If a man says he knows anything at all, he knows nothing what he aught to know.  But...

[BigSmoker]

MW,
Ditto on the pecan but like to mix in some apple with chicken.  Have used alder with salmon with good results as well.  Never used more than 4 hrs of smoke either.[:)]

Jeff
www.bbqshopping.com
Some say BBQ is in your blood, if thats true my blood must be BBQ sauce.

[DEMAN]

Well...here is the end of this story.

The cleaning of the BS did the trick... no more burnt smell. The ribs turned out "awesome" as my guests put it. They sat 8 hours in a mixture lemon juice and apple cider then 8 hours in my homemade BBQ rub (taken from the BBQ book "How to Grill" by Steven Raichlen) then on to the Bradley Smoker. I put a strip of bacon on the thicker ribs on the lower racks. I used 11 apple pucks and 1 hickory puck in the middle for 4 hours of smoke. The temp guage never got over 225 deg but the ribs were completly done in 5 hours so I had to remove them and wrap in aluminum foil for a couple of hours. I wonder if the guage may be faulty as I expected it to take 7 hours and I had the slider all the way up to acheive the 225 deg? Guess it is time to get the digital double probe thermometer.[8D]

The ribs had enough smoke flavor to tempt me to cut the smoke down by an hour next time around but changing to mostly apple pucks kept it from being completly overpowering. I removed the al. foil and wiped on my homemead BBQ sauce (recipe from the same book with a few personal touches) and put them on the grill for a few minutes. They were smokey and tender and delicious and we ate them till we couldn't move.

Thank you all for the tips and ideas and for helping me pull off a sucessful rib BBQ!

Dave