GOT (Getting Off Topic) Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: smoking meat

[Decker, Terry D.]

> Honestly, Bear, I suspect the temperature of the heat source 
> is incidental-
> once it reaches a critical temperature, the temperature for 
> the fuel to both
> emit smoke and to maintain a self-sustaining fire (fuel being added as
> necessary, of course) you're set. After that, you need 
> sufficient distance
> to maintain the foodstuffs at a preferred temperature. I'm 
> sure there's a
> formula, but the folks I know who use smokehouses do it by experience.

The temperature may be incidental to the process, but that can not be
assumed.  A definite source temperature is required to create smoke (without
it, there is no smoked meat), so to what extent does that heat source affect
the results?  Experience will tell you how to build the fire and where to
hang the meat, but it does not tell you why and how your empiric knowledge
suceeds.

Experience teachs you how to do something.  I respect that, because I have a
lot of experience in my field which doesn't necessarily match with what the
book says is right (but the book gets rewritten about every five years in my
line anyway).  But experience doesn't tell you that engine pressure is 2 PSI
below normal or what the core temperature of a ham is after four days in a
smokehouse or four minutes in a backyard smoker.  That requires
instrumentation.

When you have divergence in measurable facts, especially when no one seems
to have a definitive study of the facts, it's time to validate the
conditions and check the instruments.

The temperature may be incidental to the process, but that can not be
assumed.  A definite source temperature is required to create smoke (without
it, there is no smoked meat), so to what extent does that heat source affect
the results? 

Is the core temperature of "cold smoked" meat 160 F, as stated in some
sources, or is it something else?  Do differences in the smoking process
between smokehouses account for the differences of opinion?  Experience
without instrumentation or research doesn't answer those kinds of questions.

> Part of the reason for the long, slow smoking is to give the flavoring
> elements an opportunity to penetrate the meat fibers. If you 
> notice, most
> foods which are hot-smoked have the flavor on the outside, 
> whereas properly
> cool-smoked foods have the flavor throughout- and I'm not 
> just talking the
> salt from the preparatory brine soak.

My question here is how much of this is real and how much is sensory
illusion?  To what depth does the smoke flavor actually penetrate the meat?
If the flavor actually penetrates the meat completely, what is the
mechanism?  I've seen conflicting "facts" (opinions) on this, including my
own, but no instrumentation or testing to support any of them.

> The difference between the fire most of you use on your 
> barbecues, and my
> barbecue-with-an-attitude (as I called it, to relieve the 
> minds of nervous
> autocrats and site owners) is that I was forcing air into the 
> fire, and
> increasing the temps from about 500 f to about 2000 f. And, 
> of course, I had
> them all bewildered when simultaneously heating my coffee pot 
> over the fire
> without burning it ;-)

> Saint Phlip,
> CoDoLDS

IIRC, charcoal burns at 1100 F, which is measured at the point source.  At a
constant rate of burn, the ambient temperature should drop as you move away
from the point of burn.  The average temperature of a fire should normally
be lower than the source temperature.  Forced air increases the rate of
burn, while localizing it, creating a furnace effect that increases the
source and average temperatures.

In the case of the coffee pot, as long as the liquid can convect enough heat
from the metal to keep it below melting point, you're in good shape.  The
same principle works when boiling water in paper bags or paper cups, a stunt
I have pulled many times in the past.  It is counter-intuitive, but basic
physics.  Of course, I wouldn't want the coffee pot to boil dry.

Bear