so somethng happened today that kinda opened my eyes to a different way. at work bring bbq on mondays to taste. I brought some chicken smoked with lump only and 1 guy could taste and smell the smoke and the other two could not. chicken was only on the cooker 1.5 hours so it really didnt have a lot of time to absorb that much smoke.
the guy who could taste and smell the smoke does not bbq.
one guy who could not taste any smoke brought wings cooked with lump and mesquite wood (ack!!!) I only had one wing and it tasted great but I could taste that chemical mesquite flavor on my tongue for 2 hours. Obviously this guy likes his food drenched in smoke.
its definitely interesting how different people perceive smoke.
the eye opener for me was this - the guy I sold the smoker to works with me and he brought some ribs he cooked on the pecos and let me have a taste. well, damn were they delicous. very present smoke flavor but not overpowering so I asked him how he used the cooker. he used RO lump for heat and added about two sticks of pecan over a 5 hour period for flavor. It probably had the best balance of smoke that Ive had.
so now thats got me thinking lump for heat, wood for flavor (I think thats the first time thats been mentioned here ?
)
I plan to experiment with different amounts of wood until I can dial in that perfect flavor.
thats really interesting. but my thought is the meat has to be exposed to all the smoke at some point so even though there is residual cooking from absorbed heat, its still getting all the wood smoke