Need help with my "bad skin"

[smokingjhawk]

Tried a turkey breast this weekend, the meat turned out fantastic, moist and melted in your mouth good!

 One small problem the skin turned kind of black and tasted extremely bitter. Used oak and pecan. Any ideas what would have caused this, and what steps can used to prevent this again? The meat was great,but just about everyone I know wants "some skin"

 

[mnfred]

Hi there.  I have experienced black skin and have determined my problem as being the sugar in the brine I used.  I needed to rinse like crazy and then dry it off with paper towels and then let it air dry in the fridge for a few hours.  That solved my problem, but if you didn't brine it then consider me clueless.  I also can't speak to the bitterness problem as more detail would be needed.  Good Luck.

 

[jirodriguez]

My guess is you might have had some creasote building up. Was your top vent 100% open? Did you have thinish blue/gray smoke, or billowy white smoke? What temps did you have in your smoke chamber?

Main thing to remember is if you smell smoke you are getting smoke flavor, you don't have to be able to see it very well. Glad to hear the meat tasted good.

 

[eman]

Poultry takes on smoke pretty fast and you may want to just try the pecan next time unless you were using the oak for heat.

 Also make sure that the wood is well cured

 

[meateater]

I agree on the creosote! Sounds like the skin protected the meat. If the skin gave you a tingly taste then your smoke was to thick. you want gentle wisps of tbs. Look here.

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/wiki/thin-blue-smoke-aka-tbs

 

[smokingjhawk]

Any tips on how to achive tbs?   (careful how you answer!)

Thanks to all for help! 

sbf.......what a concept!!!!

 

[jirodriguez]

I assume you are using the Char-griller, if you have made the modifications and have a charcoal basket the easiest thing to do is use chunks of dry well seasoned flavor wood that are between a golfball and a baseball in size. Fill the charcoal basket with unlit charcoal with 4 or 5 chunks of wood mixed in, then dump 1/2 a chimney of lit charcoal on top of that, during start up the smoke will be thick and white, but it will settle down to TBS after about 10-15 minutes. Once it settles in add your meat and your good to go. Then you can add another 2 or 3 chunks of wood every hour to two hours depending on how much smoke flavor you want. Each time you add wood it will be thick for a minute or so, but will steady back down to TBS very fast. Good luck, and don't forget the Q-View!

 

[smokingjhawk]

Thanks for the tips that will help a lot!  The question is where can I get a charcoal basket? In the smf is there some instruction on modifications?

 

[jirodriguez]

Here is a link that showes a cheap fast easy basket mod. You can buy the basket a Lowes.... just scroll down till you see the pictures by Warthog:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/thread/83876/char-griller-question  

Also do a search in the "Charcoal Smokers" forum for "Char-griller mods" there a lot of differant threads that show some fairly simple, cheap, and easy mods you can make that make the Char-grillers a much better smoker.