VERY sharp smoke ring edge - too much smoke?

[capnamerca]

bretheren - I've now done dos briskets. They've both been wicked tasty, and I've had no complaints. That said, both of them have looked like this when cut ...

That smoke ring is not deceiving you - it's like someone took a dark pink marker to the edge of the meat. I've been using Kingsford and pecan chips to smoke. Fat cap goes down, and it's a pretty basic rub - salt, pepper, jamaican jerk, some italian seasoning, perhaps some other stuff. I'm wondering if I'm not overloading on the pecan chips? Both briskets have been about 9 lbs trimmed (bought them packer, trimmed myself), and were in the smoke until about 155-160, foiled to 190, and rested until at least 170 (would have liked more, but we were hungry :)).

Any thoughts? I only ask because I've not seen many other brisets with flourescent smoke rings like mine have been (and I'm two-for-two :)).

Side note - I've discovered a serious drawback to the Bandera. Any brisket larger than about 10 pounds struggles to fit into the square smoke chamber. A barrel smoker would really make it easier to have a larger dino turd.

[Bigmista]

How does it taste? If the brisket doesn't taste too smokey, then you didn't get too much smoke.

[jminion]

Moisture in the air plays a big role in the formation of smokering, when the conditions are right you can get that very defind ring and darker colors to purple.

[BBQchef33]

i cook with all wood thru the whole cook with an occasional chimney of lump... so i doubt overloading with chips is a problem, and honestly, i dont see a problem, just a really cool smoke ring. I get them like that from time to time.. Especially if i marinade first.

[capnamerca]

If the brisket doesn't taste too smokey, then you didn't get too much smoke.

The last one I did was close :). For me, it wasn't too much smoke. For someone used to a more traditional brisket (say, from a BBQ joint like rudy's) it was probably a bit heavy. I'm going to back off on the next one, just for comparison's sake.

[SP]

You can get very good smoke rings with little visable smoke. When a fire is hot enough it burn all the particals you see in the air (smoke), but the flavor from the wood or charcoal is still there.

[thirdeye]

capnamerca,

I cook about the same way you do. Pecan is my favorite brisket wood too. My pecan rings look like this.



If I do a mustard/wooster slather to add some surface moisture, it darkens the ring up. Nowdays I use lump, I havent burned all wood in 20 years but the rings were more pronounced with wood coals. But .... don't sweat the ring one way or the other, they don't taste any different.

[BBQchef33]

Thanks for the close-up thirdeye..

now i gotta go get some brisket for lunch. :)

[RichardF]

If your brisket tastes good, I think it looks great. Here is a picture of my last brisket with a similar smoke ring, and it was great.

[beerguy]

CapnA, in the immortal words of Dapitboss, "Id hit that!". My small brisket a few weeks ago looked the same, tasted great. Keep on keeping on, try your experiment with less wood, but keep on trying. we all learn from everyones successes as well as their disappointments and questioning.
If the dog wont eat it, its time to try something else, otherwise, enjoy the ring!

[smokinbadger]

capnamerca,

Looks great to me. I have done briskets on my Bandera and the smoke ring looks really similar. By the way, what temperature was your smoke chamber, and how long did it take to reach the temperatures you mentioned?

[Roo-B-Q'N]

I have similar smoke rings as well. I heard that if you take your brisket from fridge to smoker without letting it get to room temp you are going to get a larger more pronounced smoke ring due to the time it takes the meat to get to 140. Any trueth to that, and is that what is happening here?

[capnamerca]

It's true that the smoke ring stops forming at 140. If you put the brisket on cold, it'll take longer to get to 140, so you'll get "more" smoke ring. I always thought that probably meant a deeper ring, but according to my empirical results, it means a darker/sharper ring.

As for times, for a 9ish lb brisket, into the smoker cold, smoker running between 200-250 (avg temp probably 220), it took ~4 hours to 140 or so, 2more to 160 when I foiled, and another probably 4 (last one in the oven since I had to leave) to get to 190ish, when I turned off the heat and let it sit, still in the foil, until it cooled until about 170. I honestly thought that the cooking times would be longer than they were, but I went with it, and it was well received.

I'm ok with it, it just wasn't something I'd seen a lot of in the past. Got some possible brisket events upcoming, so I'm going to try cherry instead of pecan, and a warm brisket (i.e. NOT from the fridge) into the smoker, just to see. I'd like to identify the variable(s) in play (damn engineering training :)).

Thanks for all the input.

[parrothead]

My briskets always do that. Picture perfect smoke ring that you can snap a line to.