smoke question

I saw something on the Food Network last week during the grilling and chilling programming that confused me. During one of the competitions that they showed, a BBQ team put foil on their uncooked ribs and put apple slices in the foil. (I like the idea of putting apples in when you foil!) But they said after a few hours they take the ribs out and then they will get exposed to the wood smoke. Now I thought that a piece of meat only absorbs smoke during the first 2 or 3 hours of cooking. If you foil first and then later take the meat out of the foil and expose it to smoke, will it absorb any smoke? Will you be able to have a smoke ring in the meat if you do this?

That pig pic is hysterical.

As for your question, I don't know. I have never put foil on anything before letting is soak up the smoke for a while. To be honest, I never foil a brisket or beef ribs, rarely wrap pork ribs, only tent a turkey, and wrap a butt in banana leaves.

But then again, there are as many ways to do this as there are people that do it.

I'm hungry.

So you can still get the smokey flavor but you might not get the smoke ring. Would you lose points in a competition if you did not have a smoke ring?

If you used the 3-2-1 method for ribs and cooked them for 3 hours in the smoke and then put the apple slices in when you foil for two hours. Do you think you would get the same sweetness in your ribs as if you had done the foil and apples for the first 2 or 3 hours? I think it would but I am not totally sure about that.

I've seen them on a couple of different Food Network shows doing that to their slabs and have never understood it. IMHO you lose the point of smoking when you foil them for the first 80% of the cooking time. No smoke ring, not nearly as much (if any) smoky flavor. All you're doing, in essence, is baking the ribs. As for the sweet apple flavor, that's why I spray with apple juice! To each their own, but I've seen dozens of teams win with 3-2-1 and have never seen a team win by foil/baking their ribs.

Would you lose points in a competition if you did not have a smoke ring?

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KCBS instructions are that smokering is not to be considered. However I'd be willing to bet that two otherwise identical entries would have the with smokering entry edging out the entry without.
That said, I don't ever get smoke ring on ribs, nor would I know where to look for it. What amounts to a smokering on a brisket goes clear to the bone on a rib.