Water pans, do you use them and why?

[daniels]

Never mind.

 

[gr0uch0]

No guy, its complete BS. Sorry. You're comparing apples to footballs. 

Now, I'm not going to argue this further, so save it. :icon_rolleyes:

You've not disproven a thing, but instead, simply cried "BS" and left. If you can prove that water vapor and smoke molecules don't cling to one another, let's hear it. Why do you think one of the main objectives in cold smoking is to rid the smoke of the condensate and separate the two?

You might want to do a litle homework prior to attempting to discredit others, "guy".

 

[chef k-dude]

Some is science and some is opinion, and some is “lore”.

As far as advice from competition smokers, it can be very effective, but can also be very specific to their particular setup.

I haven’t watched a lot of competitions, but I don’t imagine since I get the furrowed brow from “the best barbeque guy in town” (from whatever town I happen to be in) when I chat with him and tell him I love to do some smoking here and there and use a masterbuilt electric smoker…that these “professionals” (a word that means you get paid, not necessarily that you are the best at anything) are using an electric masterbuilt smoker.

My MES came with a pan. The instructions tell you to use the pan…if you want, it also tells you to dampen/constrict the vent…another argument you can start on this web site in a heartbeat…fruitlessly.

The nice lady that started this firestorm of discussion is using a propane smoker…there are many kinds of smokers…including gas grills with smoker pans bought from the hardware store or other places (pray tell!).

At age 52, I can tell you for a fact that “good barbeque” is a matter of opinion anyway. I see judges discrediting ribs that come readily off the bone…”you should have to bite and pull a bit” they’ll say. But I haven’t met one person…regular people, not these “smoking gods” who determine the fate of competitors…that has ever had ribs that come right off the bone, or falling off the bone so much that a fork is actually effective, say, “these taste OK, but I hate when the meat falls off the bone". Never in my life have I ever met a person who said that. So, “professional” is more than opinion when you are trying to please judges at a competition, but regular people don’t always agree with the experts…and there are a lot more regular people that eat food than “experts”.

Because of my little MES, electric, with water pan and all, I almost NEVER by any smoked meat anymore. What I make is as good or better than 85% of all BBQ I have purchased…at least my experience in the east which includes the vaunted “Lexington BBG” which to me is the most overrated of all…but my wife loves it…because she grew up on it. I have also had BBQ in Texas, and did not come home to Virginia wanting to repeat that. As a Virginia boy I had to "get the hell out of Texas anyway"...and here's the song about it:

There are so many variables to smoking and using a water pan in my opinion.

The first would be, “What is the ambient humidity in the air of the day you are smoking in?”. Right? Duh. If it’s raining, it would be different than a really dry day. And your heat source is NOT going to absolutely dry every cubic foot of air it draws and passes through your smoker…especially at a smolder.

Second would be, “what kind of smoker and thus heat source are you using?”…and wood…some people actually smoke with green wood (gasp!) which would release moisture as it tries to burn.

Third would be, “What are you smoking?”. I would think smoking some fish using a water pan would make more sense than a butt, but I use mine almost all the time and will often remove it near the end of the cooking time with anything I want a bark on, to allow that bark to “set” or dry out some. I love bark the most of all, so I am all about protecting the bark…my beautiful, sacred, blackened, chewy wonderful bark…but I digress…

The other thing my water pan does for me in my MES is catch a lot of the fat, rather than that fat fall to the bottom of the smoker, it not only saves some cleanup, but also not dripping on the heat shield over the electric element which creates an aroma and flavor I’m not fond of.

Usually, on a long smoke, my pan evaporates most liquid, and fat, which means some of that fat is recirculating with the steam…and that can’t be a bad thing. When the pan is almost empty, I remove it before IT starts to impart a flavor I don’t want in my meat.

I have a hard time believing a water pan does not add to moisture in the food or at least reduce the amount of moisture that precipitates from the surface of the food…which would help retain more of the natural moisture in the food. These “opinions” range far and wide here…some saying a water pan makes soft soggy bark while others say it’s a waste of time anyway because the water is irrelevant and doesn’t add moisture to the food except only on the surface. I think the answer is more complicated and goes back to the three factors I list above…in my opinion.

To the casual reader who popped in here just to get a danged answer so they can smoke a butt this weekend, I tell you…what I have learned, and why I don’t post here much anymore, is you are better off scouring the web, using what you read here AND elsewhere, and then choose what makes sense to you and do your own R&D at home. Your circumstance will be different than others and the day you smoke will be different than the next. Keep at it, you’ll smoke some mistakes, and you’ll get a lot just right. The important thing is you pay attention to “what was what”, and learn to “rinse and repeat” once you have found what works for you. As I wrote before, good BBQ is opinion unless you are in a competition, where it is my opinion, the “experts” are usually simply people who have produced good food for a long time and may have innovated beyond others. What THEY call “good ribs” for instance, may completely differ from your tastes and preferences. I know I tend to disagree with a lot of people who tell me their guy in their town has the best BBQ anywhere…I am often…not always, NOT as impressed…but still enjoy the food nonetheless and use eating their food as a learning experience for how to improve my own, as well as justify how good I really do cook.

*I realize using the term BBQ is a variable. In my post above, I am using the term to mean essentially everything we cook in our smokers. Australians call anything on grill "bah-be-Q"...we call it grilling, and to be precise, smoked pork that is pulled or chopped and often served with a bun and sides is what we in the USA call "Barbeque"…everything else that comes from our smoker is technically “Smoked-(insert food product name here), but a lot of Americans also call anything with a sauce, glazed and set on the meat “BBQ”. Your mileage may vary, but I was trying to keep it simple…not start a whole new discussion on “technical semantics”.