Brontoburger
Full Fledged Farker
When I was doing a brisket the other day I confirmed something I'd suspected for a while: CLEAR SMOKE! I was being very careful with the smoke since I was using mesquite, an aggressive flavor, and had been told by a couple of people that my bbq tasted too smoky for them. Now, I am able to achieve and maintain sweet blue smoke consistently. I had put in a chunk of mesquite. I watched it smoke for a few minutes, then the smoke stopped. Opened the box figuring to jostle the coals. Same thing: blue smoke for 5 minutes or so then nothing. I should mention that I'm using a WSM.
So I stood where I could get a good face full of the exhaust and sure enough, nice strong unmistakable mesquite smell. Just nothing at all visible in the air. I knew there was wood in there in contact with the coals. If I open the dampers and throttle up the temp it'll start rolling blue then white. This has only happened since I've been using the WSM. Wood chunks burn so clean that they just about become lump charcoal. It's like.....like zen smoke man. It's beautiful. Like I said, I had seen this happen before with other woods like cherry. I had thought: no visible smoke=add more wood. This time I didn't add more wood until I was sure that the previous chunk had burned out. Maybe that's why my Q tasted too smoky to some. (I've also been told that my bbq was the best anyone's ever tasted, so while I do like a nice smoky flavor, I'm chalking the criticism up to personal taste.)
So my lesson is that if there's wood in the fire, just because you can't see smoke doesn't mean it isn't doing its' job. Seriously though, the meat came out fantastic. This was my third brisket and this time I nailed it!
So I stood where I could get a good face full of the exhaust and sure enough, nice strong unmistakable mesquite smell. Just nothing at all visible in the air. I knew there was wood in there in contact with the coals. If I open the dampers and throttle up the temp it'll start rolling blue then white. This has only happened since I've been using the WSM. Wood chunks burn so clean that they just about become lump charcoal. It's like.....like zen smoke man. It's beautiful. Like I said, I had seen this happen before with other woods like cherry. I had thought: no visible smoke=add more wood. This time I didn't add more wood until I was sure that the previous chunk had burned out. Maybe that's why my Q tasted too smoky to some. (I've also been told that my bbq was the best anyone's ever tasted, so while I do like a nice smoky flavor, I'm chalking the criticism up to personal taste.)
So my lesson is that if there's wood in the fire, just because you can't see smoke doesn't mean it isn't doing its' job. Seriously though, the meat came out fantastic. This was my third brisket and this time I nailed it!
