i thought some of you might find this interesting
THE SMOKE RING—WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT TELLS US
And while we’re talking about kinds of smoke, we may as well talk about smoke penetration and the “smoke ring” so often associated with good BBQ. On properly executed smoked meats you can see a red ring just below the surface of the meat, hovering between the bark and the brown-grey cooked meat. That red ring is called the smoke ring. Why is it red? Because of nitrous oxide!
When wood or charcoal burn, they produce nitrous oxide as one of the byproducts of their combustion. That nitrous oxide combines with the myosin proteins near the surface of the meat, changing their composition. Myosin is the protein most responsible for meat’s red color, and by changing its structure, the nitrous oxide prevents the myosin from denaturing in a way that turns brown. Thus, it stays red or pink. (It is the same reaction that keeps ham and corned beef red instead of turning brown when cooked.)
The smoke ring also points us to an interesting truth: The depth of the smoke ring is the maximum depth of smoke penetration, and therefore of flavor penetration from the fire.
It doesn’t matter for how many hours you smoke your pork butt or how perfect your fire management is, the dead center of the butt will not taste like smoke.
The gasses and particulate matter that smoke is made of just can’t penetrate the muscle fibers that far down. In fact, almost all of the penetrative smoke flavor in barbecued meats is achieved in the first couple hours of cooking.
That’s why you can put a few chunks of hardwood on a charcoal fire at the beginning for the sake of smoke and not have to add more wood later on. The flavor will go just as deep as if you had smoked it over wood for the whole cook. Now, it is a popular thing to add some more hardwood at the end of a cook to throw a little more smoke flavor on the outside of the meat, but that will be surface smoke, not deep smoke.
THE SMOKE RING—WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT TELLS US
And while we’re talking about kinds of smoke, we may as well talk about smoke penetration and the “smoke ring” so often associated with good BBQ. On properly executed smoked meats you can see a red ring just below the surface of the meat, hovering between the bark and the brown-grey cooked meat. That red ring is called the smoke ring. Why is it red? Because of nitrous oxide!
When wood or charcoal burn, they produce nitrous oxide as one of the byproducts of their combustion. That nitrous oxide combines with the myosin proteins near the surface of the meat, changing their composition. Myosin is the protein most responsible for meat’s red color, and by changing its structure, the nitrous oxide prevents the myosin from denaturing in a way that turns brown. Thus, it stays red or pink. (It is the same reaction that keeps ham and corned beef red instead of turning brown when cooked.)
The smoke ring also points us to an interesting truth: The depth of the smoke ring is the maximum depth of smoke penetration, and therefore of flavor penetration from the fire.
It doesn’t matter for how many hours you smoke your pork butt or how perfect your fire management is, the dead center of the butt will not taste like smoke.
The gasses and particulate matter that smoke is made of just can’t penetrate the muscle fibers that far down. In fact, almost all of the penetrative smoke flavor in barbecued meats is achieved in the first couple hours of cooking.
That’s why you can put a few chunks of hardwood on a charcoal fire at the beginning for the sake of smoke and not have to add more wood later on. The flavor will go just as deep as if you had smoked it over wood for the whole cook. Now, it is a popular thing to add some more hardwood at the end of a cook to throw a little more smoke flavor on the outside of the meat, but that will be surface smoke, not deep smoke.