Smoking Question
The other day was my first attempt at making ribs. After a bit of research and time constraints, I slow cooked the ribs for two hours in the oven, then placed them on my gas grill with wood chips for the remainder (3 ish hours). They turned out great, but after an hour on the grill all of the wood chips were down to ash.
I soaked the chips for several hours, then placed them directly on the flavor savor covering the flame. How do you smoke for hours without a smoker? Did I need to use more chips? Soak them for longer. Obviously once the gill is going I can not live the grate and replenish. Is an hour long enough for the smoke? (there was a lot of it for that hour).
p.s. I ask this because I have a 5lb pork butt that I want to cook. Half for tacos & half for pulled pork.
-
-
Soaking the chips doesn't really do much to keep the chips from burning up. It doesn't take too long for all that water to boil off, then you're just burning dry wood.
The trick is to choke off the oxygen supply to your smoke wood (sort of like you do when making charcoal). I prefer a smoke pack over a metal box, because you can better limit the oxygen supply to the wood with a double wrap of foil. Just poke a few holes in it and toss it on the heat source. I wouldn't even bother soaking them first.
Bear in mind, you need to use a lot more wood with a gas grill than you would with a charcoal grill or a smoker. Smoke will leak out from everywhere in a gas grill, so a lot less of it will run across your meat. I'd just use the gas grill the entire time, and change out the smoke packs once or twice during the cook.
-
-
re: ricepad
^^^^^^
I agree with ricepad.When I do ribs on a Webber kettle, I use chunk hickory (but also keep chunk mesquite adn apple around for other meats). It's larger being chunks so you do not have to replace it as often thus keeping your heat more stable for longer periods of time within the cooker.
I also smoke my riibs first, and if time does not allow full cooking, I finsih in the oven and then throw back on the hot grill or under the broiler to crisp up the outside. Oven first is ok, but the smoke does a better job of penetrating the meat when teh meat is raw and no bark or browned exterior blocks its ability to permeate the surface.
-
-
You need to replenish your chips every 20 minutes or so. And you should do the smoking part first -- raw meat absorbs the smoke flavor better than cooked.
A 5-lb pork butt will need about 4 hrs of smoke and then at least 4-8 more hours in the oven. More than 4 hours of smoke is unnecessary because it stops absorbing the smoke flavor after that. So you might just as well finish it in the oven, wrapped in foil.
›4 Replies-
-
-
re: acgold7
cowboyardee
Sep 9, 2011 12:02 PM
Personal preference plays into this. With ribs that spent the whole time in smoke, i find the smoke flavor overpowering and the delicious porkiness of the ribs can get a little lost. For 5 hour ribs, I aim for may an hour and a half of smoke. But it's not like the ribs won't come out or will be unsafe to eat or something if you smoke em the whole time. They'll just have a very strong smoky flavor, which some people like.
BTW to the OP - even on a gas grill, I suggest you don't soak your chips. Rather, just wrap a smallish packet of em in foil with a couple holes poked in the wrapping for smoke to escape. Then experiment with finding a place to put em that smolders but doesn't make em burst into flames.
-
re: cowboyardee
That's an excellent point regarding personal taste, especially when you're dealing with something as regional and polarizing as BBQ is.
Also, different types of equipment will give different amounts of smoke. You really need to play with your gear and figure out what you like best. I've got four smokers of three different fuel types and each behaves differently.
As CBRD says, experimentation is the key.
-
-
-
-
