- Aug 4, 2010
- 6
- 10
The last two times I've smoked in my pit, I have noticed a bitter flavor in the skin and membranes (last two meats were a whole turkey flattened, and a rack of ribs). Both times I used wild pecan with a few smallish pieces of wild grape, both obtained by me in south Texas. So far, I'm finding the wild pecan (some in south Texas call it a pig-nut tree, because it produces an odd looking, flattened kind of pecan that are eaten by javelina and feral hogs) not to be my best wood, but it hasn't left any bitterness before. I have used the wild grape (pieces vary from 1 to 3 inches in diameter, about 10-14 inches long) before, but only one piece for an entire cook, used early on. This last turkey and rack of ribs got more grape, about 4 pieces each. There were some bad temp spikes with the turkey, so I had to choke the fire down after adding the grape, and it smoke a lot, more than I'm used to. I chalked up the turkey to amateur hour with the temps. The ribs didn't spike, and didn't smoke heavily, but they also had the bitter flavor. Up to now, I've used a mix of oak, wild pecan, and elm in my cooking (the elm has been far and away the best wood I've used), and in almost a dozen cooks, haven't had any bitterness until these last two times.
My plan to sort this out is to get a couple racks of ribs, halve them, and over the course of a weekend cook one of the 4 with just charcoal, one with just oak, one with just wild pecan, and one with wild pecan plus grape. Just thought I'd get the forum's input on this issue. Have any of you ever used wild grape, or wild pecan before, and had similar issues? Any other thoughts on what might be going on?
Mark
My plan to sort this out is to get a couple racks of ribs, halve them, and over the course of a weekend cook one of the 4 with just charcoal, one with just oak, one with just wild pecan, and one with wild pecan plus grape. Just thought I'd get the forum's input on this issue. Have any of you ever used wild grape, or wild pecan before, and had similar issues? Any other thoughts on what might be going on?
Mark