Lack of smoke

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DoubleA

Newbie
Original poster
Nov 25, 2017
6
0
I smoked my first butt today and was disappointed at the lack of smoke flavor. I injected it with a cider base injection the night before and used Webber dry rub on the outside. I used red oak splits for fuel. I kept the cc temp between 220 and 235 till the eternal temp reached 170 then turned up the heat to 250 - 300 till my leave in probe was reading 190, I was about to wrap it to rest and decided to recheck the temp, it was only about 178 so I wrapped it and finished it in the oven. Any ideas what happened?
Do some butts just not take smoke well?
 
Red Oak is fairly mild wood and smoke is made by smoldering wood not flaming. Try adding some Hickory or other woods very near but not necessarily touching your burning oak. The hickory will catch eventually but not before doing it's job...JJ
 
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It was on the smoker for 8.5 hours before I wrapped it. I was not planning on wrapping it, but I got a false temp reading from my leave in probe. It said 190 (when I rechecked it inside it was 175-178 so I just decided to wrap it and finish it in the oven. I was thinking that by this point it had absorbed as much smoke as it could.
 
I don’t normally wrap,but have with fine results,and use different wood as well. If you want to pull the meat you may want to go to a higher temp like 203+ for pulling. Maybe the injection and seasoning were covering up some of your smoke as well.
 
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I smoked my first butt today and was disappointed at the lack of smoke flavor. I injected it with a cider base injection the night before and used Webber dry rub on the outside. I used red oak splits for fuel. I kept the cc temp between 220 and 235 till the eternal temp reached 170 then turned up the heat to 250 - 300 till my leave in probe was reading 190, I was about to wrap it to rest and decided to recheck the temp, it was only about 178 so I wrapped it and finished it in the oven. Any ideas what happened?
Do some butts just not take smoke well?
Try different wood. If you like a nice smokey flavor try hickory. I don't use Mesquite much because if just a little of the bark gets in it can make you meat taste bitter. There is only one place I will buy mesquite wood chips from. I don't wrap my meat until I take it off the smoker.
 
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Same here, I don't wrap my butts at all.
Hot & fast or low & slow, they still get plenty of smoke.
I usually use a combo of oak & hickory.
Al
 
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Thanks for the tips
I will not be injecting the next one and will try some hickory mixed in and also will make sure of my internal temp before removing from the smoker.
 
8.5 hours in the smoker should have been plenty long enough for a solid smoke flavor. Red oak is a medium wood, but should have given you a nice flavor after that length of time. Was there a smoke ring when you pulled the meat apart? If not, the wood may have been too old and dry. It burns up too fast, diminishing the exposure to smoke. When I'm using older wood, like a bag of cherry I just found in the garage bought like 3 years ago, I'll double the amount I normally use.
 
8.5 hours in the smoker should have been plenty long enough for a solid smoke flavor. Red oak is a medium wood, but should have given you a nice flavor after that length of time. Was there a smoke ring when you pulled the meat apart? If not, the wood may have been too old and dry. It burns up too fast, diminishing the exposure to smoke. When I'm using older wood, like a bag of cherry I just found in the garage bought like 3 years ago, I'll double the amount I normally use.
It did have a small smoke ring, and the smoke flavor came out a little better the second day. My wood was cut and split about 1.5 years ago from a massive oak tree that was blown down in a storm. It is just right our wood stove but I am not sure for smoking.
 
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