Post smoke pellicle

[bill1]

I'm all in favor of "pellicle experiments" on any meat at low temperatures. Personally I'd be surprised if beef or pork will form a pellicle, in a 'fridge, at anything less than a week, but I'd love to be proved wrong. I'm only discouraging doing it (for food safety reasons) at room temps for anything more than a few minutes.

I think what we call "smoking" of beef and pork at safe temps (smokers >140F) possibly does form a pellicle, and in minutes, not days. Heat is the universal catalyst after all. And that could be considered the first stage of bark formation, hence the "antics with semantics" we're seeing in this thread. At least Greg Blonder, who's a pretty sharp guy, argues for here. But I expect that once that bark (paint film!) forms you're kind of all done getting NOx molecules (and smoke ring formation) into your meat, and you're just piling smoke flavor onto the bark.

So we tend to all agree that most of the art of instilling the smoke flavor we like (which is subjective) is occuring during the very early hours of smoking. And that might be a function of gas flow rate as well as smoke density and temperature. And that's probably why the pellet grills, with their combustion fans and lots of forced flow, have a different smoke profile. Possibly something to tinker with there.

 

[bill1]

Just btw, I failed to give a hat tip to third eye and many of you who have empirically found tasty methods while still maintaining safe food handling guidelines.

 

[chef jimmyj]

bill 1 You make some good points and your focus on Safety is admirable. The USDA/FDA allows Restaurants to have any meat out of refrigeration for a max of 2 hours for prep or whatever. Testing has shown there is no significant bacterial growth in the first 2 hours. As I talked about, forming a pellicle is for the benefit of smoke adhesion on food that will be cold smoked, fish being most common. I agree that a pellicle on any meat that is being Hot Smoked is likely pointless, but an hour or two in front of a Fan at room temp is considered Safe and would likely give some amount of pellicle on red meat. To what advantage? I have no idea. I see a side by side Experiment in the making...JJ

 

[Magic Meat]

So I smoked my ribs for 6 hours, got a great smoke ring, no pellicle formed, I fixed the issue and it won't happen again.
My question is this-

Can a pellicle form @ 250° in a standard oven?

(I know I can get it to form if I throw it back on the grill, but I was hoping to just do this the easy way as the weather doesn't permit at the moment.)

Or does this only occur on my grill when I'm smoking?

EDIT: I DO mean PELLICLE. my bark (flavor crust + pellicle) is an additional. The flavor crust will form no question. But the pellicle is a complex series of chemical reactions that make a polymerized meat encasement layer. This is my question. Will the maillard reaction take place in an oven NOT a smoker.

My understanding of a pellicle is not created by heat, it's rather the oxidation of meat leading to a very thin layer of polymerized protiens on the the very surface of any meat that is exposed to air circulation. It has been proven that uv light can play a part in the formation, although a pellicle can form during low heat application with good air flow. I don't believe the maillard reaction has anything to do with a pellicle because cold raw meat can form a pellicle in the fridge no problem without any heat. Pat dry a steak and put it in the fridge for 6 to 10 hours, the outside of the steak will be dry to the touch but have a distinct tackiness to it that it could not achieve wrapped in plastic, in a marinade, or covered in some way. This thin dry tacky layer is a pellicle, no more no less. And from my understanding has nothing to do with the meat being cooked in any way.
That pellicle gives the meat the ability for smoke and in some cases dry seasonings but more for smoke to adhere and penetrate on a micron level. A meat surface that is fresh cut and wet tends to repel smoke and causes the smoke to sort of self rinse and not get a chance to penetrate as well as it would with a pellicle. Imho bark, maillard and pellicle is like apples oranges and pecans.
But that's just my two cents.

 

[chef jimmyj]

You are pretty much correct up to here...

A meat surface that is fresh cut and wet tends to repel smoke and causes the smoke to sort of self rinse and not get a chance to penetrate as well as it would with a pellicle.

Folks often confuse the difference between Absorbing Smoke, specifically Nitrogen Dioxide, and meat Taking on Smoke Flavor.
A Wet Surface provides moisture that can combine with NO2, be absorbed into the meat and cause the Myoglobin, red protein in meat, to turn Pink and stay that color even after cooking. This is why many cooks smoke at low temps, 150 to 180, and Spritz or Mop frequently, during the first 4 hours of Smoking with Wood alone or with charcoal and wood. They get a deep, pretty, Smoke Ring. The meat will continue to take on the smokes flavor, there is just no penetration, after the surface gets to 140°F and is cooked.
In contrast, in Cold Smoking, we want to, " Take on Smoke " as in, maximize the Smoke Flavor Components that stick to the surface of the meat. This is especially important if Smoking a short time, 4 hours give or take. Here, Drying the surface Slowly and letting moist surface proteins form a Sticky coating, a Pellicle, is a benefit...JJ

 

[bill1]

To pursue "stickiness" a bit more, surfaces that feel sticky (adhesion) to our fingers, whether glues or meat pellicle, are exhibiting their tendency to viscously flow (a cohesion effect) into the rough surfaces of our skin. (Like a gecko climbing up a wall that our own skin just slides off of.) At the molecular sizes of smoke gases (such as NO, NO2, or larger) it's not so much an adhesive effect as that there's just a lot of surface area in the "sticky" meat for molecules to utilize whatever manner of intermolecular force that's binding them to the meat, and given days of cold smoking, diffuse their way into the meat. In the same way, velvet will get smokier than silk in a smoker. (Velvet is a lot like gecko feet.)
But cooking, which involves raising the temperature of the meat, will always involve water on the surface. That liquid surface is quite slippery. I think it's not so much the smoke sticks to the water as the water sticks (or wants to condense) around the smoke. But there's still surface tension of the water to the meat so as the outer layers of water molecules evaporate, the larger smoke molecule stays behind and is diffusively driven closer, and into, the meat surface. The action of periodically spritzing the meat helps accelerates the process.
So if you have the time (or lack the heat) for cold smoking, the "sticky" (high-surface area) pellicle route is the way to go to add smoke flavor. But if you only have hours (instead of days) of if you just prefer the taste of cooked meat over raw, you're going to have lots of surface water and a pellicle is not going to help, you're better off utilizing the smoke-to-water-to-meat exchange medium.

 

[chef jimmyj]

Never had Smoked Gecko Feet. Sounds like they would really...STICK to your Ribs...JJ