Quote:
Originally Posted by el luchador
So I washed my hands of the stick burner and I'm back to charcoal. I did my first charcoal cook in a month today. OMG it's sooo easy compared to stick.
So here is the wife's verdict.
First, I wanted to cook ember style with roaring natural charcoal and no wood in sight. No chunks, no chips, no pellets no sticks, nothing wood. I just wanted to understand what pure charcoal tastes like by itself.Just lump charcoal. I bought what was available at home Depot which is Royal oak.
Ok compared to kb briquettes lump has almost no visible smoke.
I brought a chimney full to red hot and dumped it in the cooker. I added a fresh chimney about every hour. All intakes wide open, 1.75"" of exhaust wide open. Temp would get to 310 and slowly die down to 225 then I would add another chimney of lump.
I knew it was going to be good because there was no visible smoke for 90% of the cook and the heat smelled so clean.
Anyhow, four hours later the ribs are ready and this is where it gets interesting.
I asked my wife if she could taste smoke and she said yes. I asked her is it lighter than normal she said yes. So I asked do you like it better, she said "yes I like the light smoke better but I know you like your food smoky so..."
So I ask again do you prefer this smoke and she said yes that the light smoke was not interfering with the meat and she felt like she was tasting meat with smoke instead of smoke with some meat.
What????!!!
So confirmed to myself that the cleanest smoke is using no wood at all and just "embers"
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I'm not sure that is the right conclusion. You were burning charcoal, not embers. Food tastes different cooked over lump charcoal than on an Argentinian grill, to illustrate this.
And wood can burn so clean and with so much airflow that the smoke profile can remain very light indeed.
As with everything fire it's really complex, and the amount of oxygen and rate of combustion have as much to do with the resulting flavour profile as the material being burned, IMO.
