cliffcarter
is one Smokin' Farker
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2011
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IMHO the work presented by Dr. Blonder is an interesting Physics lesson and not a scientific experiment intended to disprove a hypothesis.
Ooohh...someone did an experiment and we call it science, but what's the takeaway?
Well, if memory serves from reading it the FIRST time I saw it posted, the fix suggested is to foil after only a couple of hours of smoke or so and to cook faster. Now I'm a big fan of foiling ribs and cooking 'em a little faster, but come on. Oh yeah, and don't have too much pit humidity since it'll only prolong the stall. :crazy:
All my best pork butts so far never saw any foil til after cooking. Some were cooked on my UDS at about 275*, but some were cooked on my wsm a LOT slower and turned out just as moist. As to pit humidity, the UDS has plenty when cooking direct, especially with more than just a couple of butts. As to my wsm, well, not to open a can of worms but I keep water in the pan and never end up with dry meat unless I overcook.
You pretty much missed the entire point of the article. It wasn't trying to explain how to make better food. It simply explained the science behind the stall itself.
For better or worse, there'd be no lighter fluid without some chemist somewhere. Most likely for worse, in that case.
The article still brings some interesting points regarding techniques such as foiling or not. I'm just starting out in this hobby, but articles like this put my mind to rest when I'm cooking.
I know that a lot of you have done this a thousand times and have honed your technique to always have excellent food, but I still need some guidance. Knowing what to worry about is important to me at this point, especially since I monitor my meat with a thermometer. I'm that kind of guy, someone with an engineer or scientist mindset. As Meathead had said, newbies can get freaked out about tons of things when they don't expect it.
I'm pretty new to this, so having a deeper explanation is invaluable. After all, I really don't have an experienced pitmaster to tell me what to do. None of my friends know what good Southern BBQ is where I am. They think Famous Dave's is fantastic. All I can do is figure out things from what you guys and others on the net say, and the more information I have, the better I feel about what I do when I'm cooking. I don't have a "gut feeling" with my experience. I've already found out the hard way about low n' slowing lean meats. Learning about the minion method from you all has been invaluable. BBQ ain't hard, but there are the things you do to get something that's darn good instead of just ok. All it takes is some reading, understanding, and experience.
This must be why I like watching Alton Brown's show so much. Most everything has a how and why in my head and he feeds that, just like Meathead is doing.
No one ever knew of anything called a stall back when they cooked BBQ until it was done to feel and never thought of poking a brisket or beef quarter with some electronic probe. The stall fad stuff came in with the Internet and the electronic gadgetry that was necessary to help teach some guy 1400 miles away from you how to cook something in which you both were deprived of the sense of smell, taste, feel, sight (real time sight) and even common sense. Heck even hearing is an element of the true pitmaster. The sound of the proper fire, the sound of your ribs weeping on the diverter plate.
I think "we" would have to agree on what "insignificant" meant here. I know it freaked the hell out of me the first couple times I saw it with both brisket and butts. Of course, once initiated into this phenomenon, whether it be redneck or quantum physics based I was able to develop strong coping mechanisms. The most important of which is ........... patience.
Pretty cool. I'm not sure I really agree, but it is certainly worth consideration and maybe a real food scientist will actually do some real testing to see if that's true.
I agree with landarc that a sponge is a poor test, and just because it acted as he expected (duh) doesn't really mean much.
The first hole I see in this comes in the form of foil. In a tightly foiled environment, evaporative cooling should not occur as much as when the steam is allowed to float away from the meat. Instead it is trapped inside and should, in theory, and in just as much theory as the sponge,:becky: it should not see a stall then if the stall is primarily evaporative cooling. Instead what you should see is a rise in the meat temp to a point more towards the boiling point of water at which point it would then stall.
So, I'm not so sure I understand why this is being paraded around as some sort of proven tested fact in light of all of this. Honestly, this sort of thing, and the parading around of info is a lot of the reason I stopped with the experiments. I'm not a professional food scientist with a multi-million dollar lab and deep enough pockets to grab whatever pricey equipment would definitively prove this particular minutiae or that. It was getting a bit ridiculous really.
In my opinion, it is a factor to consider along with the others, and you can take it or leave it. I have a feeling the meat is going to still cook the same way no matter what you "believe". Your thoughts have little control over that. Only changing methods will impact that...and if this causes you to change your method, then expect a change in cooking.
Still though, I did find it interesting, and I do see some merit in it. I just don't think it is as significant as the author thinks, otherwise you could bypass the stall by tightly wrapping in foil to avoid any possible evaporative cooling. However, I think we all KNOW that the stall STILL happens even when wrapped in foil. So there goes that.
Shortens the stall, yes. Prevents it entirely, no. Ergo, it is not evaporative cooling.You must have missed the previous 6 or so pages. Wrapping in foil does prevent the stall, or the "Dreaded Stall", as it has become known. :-D
Shortens the stall, yes. Prevents it entirely, no. Ergo, it is not evaporative cooling.