Menu Planning for Food Truck

[chayo taco]

Good morning!

We're about halfway through a build of a 'gourmet' taco truck here in Omaha, Nebraska called CHAYO.

With a background on the KCBS and ribfest circuit, we'll be smoking most of the meats used in our tacos.  For the non-smoked meats, we'll be using our on-board Vulcan grills: a standard Vulcan rapid recovery flat top (plancha) and the Vulcan IRX infrared charbroiler.  Our slogan is 'Fresh ~ Local ~ Tacos' and we have a nice little prep kitchen called La Cocinita to do most of the smoking, prep, marinating, etc.

In the kitchen, we're using a Southern Pride DH 65 for all of our smoked meats, with a 50/50 blend of hickory and mesquite for the pork shoulder and 'Gringo Brisket', which are both smoked/roasted overnight for 10 hours.  In the truck, the Vulcan IRX charbroiler handles the carne asada on a cook to order basis while the Vulcan RRG plancha handles the tocinillo tacos and warms up the pulled chicken or pulled pork.

I'm always looking for seasonal and regional variations to keep things interesting!

Robert Conner

Chayo /La Cocinita

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[mike5051]

Welcome to the group!  Looking forward to your contributions.

Mike

 

[SmokyMose]

Looks like quite an operation!
I hope it works out well, and welcome to the forum!

 

[chayo taco]

Thanks for the comment.  We've been plugging away at the kitchen for over a year and even have some more equipment installed since that pic was taken.  You can see our Southern Pride DH 65 smoker at the left end of the cook line under the hood.  It hasn't got much use since we bought it over a year ago, just a few 'test' pork shoulders and a couple of turkeys last thanksgiving.

When we get into the real production next spring, I'll need to experiment with getting a better smoke ring on my brisket.  The DH 65 smoker use a 2 stage roasting system - an 'always on' combination of steam pan heater and convection heater, plus a small little smoke box with chip holder which can be turned on and off.

Seems to work fine for pork and chicken, but doesn't produce the 1/8" thick smoke ring I want on my brisket.  Time will tell!

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[mike5051]

Nice!  That smoker with a 2 stage roasting system just blew my mind!  

  I'll stick with my WSM!  LOL!

Mike

 

[wbf610]

I'm relatively new, so keep that in mind, and others please feel free to correct me, but I have done a lot of reading over the last few weeks.  Lower and slower for a few hours should get the ring for you.  I start with cold meet, and don't let it warm up before being put in the smoker.  My understanding is the meat won't accept more smoke after a certain temp around 130-140 I think.  So if you are smoking on a higher heat, the meat heats quicker and won't form that ring.  I've also read that smoke won't penetrate fat that well.  If you're leaving the fat on, maybe that's a reason as well. 

Hope this helps.  Good luck with the truck.

 

[chayo taco]

Thanks for the note!  Our Southern Pride smoker is an electric smoker which uses chips, which I'd estimate burn up after maybe 4 hours.  Of course, that's about 2 in the morning, so I'm not around to refill the chip box.  I'd always heard that the smoke ring is coming from some other chemical interaction which is only produced by burning actual wood, although I've also heard that adding a lump or two of charcoal would do the trick.  I've never heard of the 130-140 degree rule before.  I suppose that after about 5 hours in the smoker, the temp should be around 140-150, so any smoke after that is a waste of time.

I've only done one brisket and it turned out WAY too overcooked...but still not a deep red smoke like I wanted.  I'm sure it'll take us a few smoke sessions to get it all balanced.  We're not in business with the truck yet, so I just keep reading...and reading...and reading.

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[chef jimmyj]

 
I'm relatively new, so keep that in mind, and others please feel free to correct me, but I have done a lot of reading over the last few weeks.  Lower and slower for a few hours should get the ring for you.  I start with cold meet, and don't let it warm up before being put in the smoker.  My understanding is the meat won't accept more smoke after a certain temp around 130-140 I think.  So if you are smoking on a higher heat, the meat heats quicker and won't form that ring.  I've also read that smoke won't penetrate fat that well.  If you're leaving the fat on, maybe that's a reason as well. 

Hope this helps.  Good luck with the truck.

No more Smoke Ring after the surface 1/2" hits 140 but the Smoke flavor will build as long as you keep making smoke. Smoke Ring is mostly show and contributes little flavor wise. You need to be making Nitrogen Dioxide by burning large amounts of wood and/or charcoal to get a thick ring. The stuff above, cold meat, low and slow and moisture all contributes to thickness as well. A gas  or electric smoker with chips or dust may give a bit of a ring, depending on the unit, but you can't expect what a stick burner will give. If you MUST have a ring and your unit can't do it. 24 hours in a Brine with Cure #1 will get you there...JJ

 

[sauceboss]

I recently came across this when trying to determine if I was wasting wood. From the research I was doing it seems Chef JimmyJ is on the money about the smoke ring and smoke absorption. I attached the web address below for the science behind it. Poke around there and see if that helps.

http://www.genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/sraflavor.html