Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

You get more for your money with the pit boss. It's been a phenomenal smoker for me. I got it from Lowes, the 850 model. Been solid for over a year, use it every week.

I can't comment on any of the wifi, or thermometer functionality. I use stand alone thermometers to monitor my cooks. The Chef IQ has been pretty good for this.

 

The thermometer included with the PB has worked pretty good for me. From the way it looked the temp was spot on for the pork I just did.

 

You should invest in an instant read thermometer and you can get an oven thermometer for like 5 bucks .. the oven thermometer goes in the cook chamber to see what the actual temp is.

 

I just pop my hand in there and slap the meat until it’s jiggly.

 

Sir, this is the barbecue thread.

 

I was just thinking I use the sharp end of my thermometer for the probe test. Ha!


I still read the temp but at this point it’s just to check…

 

and it works !!

 

Little too much meat spanking going on in here.

 

So what? HAHAHA

 

I just put my meat in my Pit Boss! It's always upright!!

Seriously I got the thing for a song. New but assembled by a blind raccoon. I reassembled it and put large ass casters on it (factory 1" casters = joke on exposed aggregate). Just have to vacuum the glow box regularly and really not much more to maintain.

 

Smoking a pig butt today for pulled pork.

 

Oh. Baby.

 

Nice pic! Looks yum.

 

I have a question for the seasons vets in here! I've probably smoked 100 pork tenderloin in the last couple of years. I've prepared them several ways.

Why do some seasonings leave a meat soaking wet, which is 99% of the time. And some leave the meat dry, even after sitting for an hour?

Pork tenderloin seasoned with 2 different rubs. The dry one is Bad Byrons butt rub.

 

Cool. A food science question.

Salt draws moisture out of the meat. In the short term, that moisture remains on the surface of the meat, but in the long term the salty water equalizes throughout the cut. It's dependent on many things, like temperature and thickness of the meat, but what you want is to either salt the meat immediately when cooking it so that it does not draw moisture out so that it stays out or salt it early enough that the salt and moisture go back into the meat. I prefer the long term method of salting meat a day or three in advance so that the salty moisture flavors the entire cut of meat.

To answer your specific question, it's a matter of how much salt is in your seasoning. Sugar comes into play too, but much less than salt.

Bottom line - water is drawn to salt. First the water comes out to the salt, then it goes back into the meat with the water to equalize the salt content of the cut.

 

And to add, that excess moisture evaporates and what’s left internally is a saline solution inhospitable for bacteria to grow. That won’t happen with the amount of salt in your rub, but you can see it starting to occur (think salt curing).

The one on the right has other ingredients - and possibly different anti caking agents - preventing visible moisture buildup, but the reaction is still the same.

 

Since my explanation was a little rambling, here's some info from an expert, with some cool animation: https://youtu.be/9O7DTiaYnbI?si=8VtlCzvSSGILkexp&t=824

 

Oh wow...great info

Watch the whole vid

Thanks for posting.