Help me make sense of this smoke flavored conundrum

[Mister C]

So I found a good looking BBQ place here, a surprisingly rare find, and decided to give it a try.Take a look at this plate:



Pulled pork, pork ribs, brisket, sausage, rolls, mac and slaw. All of it looked pretty great. Here's a closeup of the brisket:



Okay had some congealed fat, wasn't very juicy but extremely tender, pulled apart nicely, good mouth feel, meat tasted of good quality. Just one problem...

None of the food tasted of smoke. Almost at all.

Now check out the cookers these guys were sporting:


and the wood:



How could this happen? I have a few theories, please rate or add your own:

1: It was my nose. I'll admit, it did smell nicely of smoke in there, and got all in my clothes as well. But I didn't notice it as much while I was in there. This is slightly discounted by the fact that I took a rib or two home and they didn't really taste of smoke later in the day (we finished the brisket on-site).
2: It's the wood. I have no idea what I'm looking at, is that oak? In a pellet grill conversation a few weeks back, I was advised that oak would be the most neutral, light tasting of the woods available. Or maybe the wood, whatever variety, was just not great in terms of aroma (ie how or where it was grown, or its age)?
3: It's their prep. With the brisket, I got the end piece, so there was plenty of bark on it (interestingly did not taste very peppery despite being decently covered in it). Perhaps they are somehow not getting the smoke to stick to the meat? Got a decent sized ring you can see there, though.
4: Something else?

I honestly don't get it. Maybe I'm just lucky, but this is the first time I've eaten smoked meat in a restaurant that didn't taste like smoke. Dry, sure, but no smoke flavor? Never. How could a huge stick burner like these produce so much nothing in terms of flavor?

[texastweeter]

Nose, allergies, cold something like that. Gonna be my guess.

[Mister C]

One might think, but my wife just chimed in and said she didn't taste it either. I wonder if sitting in that place where the smoker is right there, then being served the same stuff with the same flavor, had an impact?

There's no doubt their flavor was light either way. I'm also more used to liberal use of the salt and pepper, both at home and whenever I order out. This was definitely not that.

[Draznnl]

Was it just you? Did others in your group get similar lack of flavor? You mentioned not tasting the pepper in the brisket rub. Did others also not taste that?
Let’s narrow down whether it was a food issue or a Mister C issued.

[Mister C]

Good questions, yes I neglected to add in there that my wife noted the same thing. Baffling for us both.

[Draznnl]

In that case, I’m stumped. Hopefully someone with a lot of woodfired smoker knowledge will pipe up.

[dpearce]

Looks like oak. If they’re using red or white oak (very common) it would not have as smokey a flavor as post oak. Course, my sinus fire up around smoke so I tend to notice fruitwood flavors and very strong flavors like mesquite. Hickory somewhat. Pecan adds a very subtle flavor, which I like overall.

[Mister C]

Okay. I smoke with cherry and apple mostly, and they impart a very noticeable but not harsh flavor. Much stronger than what I got here.

To be fair, this was in suburb in the middle of Mexico. They generally do not smoke meats here, and when they do cook low and slow it tends to be much more au natural vs strong rubs. Maybe it was a case of playing to the crowd... Either way it's just another reason for me to get to the butcher and DIY again. Been too lazy with that! Thanks for your thoughts!

[TripleB]

I was just at the Meat-up in San Marcos, Tx. We visited the Burnt Bean, Barbs-B- and Terry Blacks (to name a few). All highly rated Texas BBQ restaurants and all with large off-set smokers. Brisket, beef ribs, pork ribs all delicious and tender. But a friend of mine Roc and I both commented to each other that there was not much smoke essence. Very light. We were both surprised at this. 2 weeks later, I did a rack of pork ribs in my smoker using Pecan on my off-set. Not much smoke flavor, though they were also tender and delicious.

I don’t really have an answer as to ‘why’, but that I have experienced it too. I have hickory and I might try that next time.

One thing I think it might be is the moisture in the wood. Less moisture, less smokiness. One reason pellet grills do not give off much smoke flavor is that the pellets are kiln dried….little moisture. It could be the wood at your restaurant had dried out, same as my wood. But the Texas restaurants go through so much wood that I can’t believe their wood dried out.

[Mister C]

Your point is really interesting. Interestingly this wasn't in TX but in Mexico. It looked like the proprietor was Texas trained or Texas aspiring though. They are only open about 4 hours a day (or until they run out), 4 days a week. If it's true that wood moisture is correlated with flavor, with this environment of average humidity in the teens, 6k feet up with strong sun, and the wood pile sitting in open air... ? Maybe that has something to do with it too. Thanks for your thoughts!

[Ace]

The internet says this on what type of wood grows in the Bajio Mexico area.

The Bajío region of Mexico, a seasonally dry, high-altitude valley region, features trees adapted to subtropical, semi-arid, and transitional climates. Common native species include drought-tolerant mesquite, various species of oak (Quercus), acacia, copal, pochote, palo amarillo, and riparian trees like the bald cypress.

Why the food didn't have more of a smoke flavor is a mystery. You might discuss this with the Restaurant Manager and see what he thinks... Please let us know what you discover...

[Ace]

Mister C
He probably got that big eating all that great looking food... 😎

[Donw]

I do know that airline food often taste bland to people because of two factors: one being low humidity and the other altitude. Cabins at high altitudes are pressurized to around 8,000 feet. Sounds likely that since your region is stated as being a dry high altitude area you might be experiencing the same conditions as those eating on an airliner. My wife’s cousin was head chef at a Sky Chefs kitchen up North and often mentioned things they did to lessen these effects.

[Mister C]

Interesting, this may be though honestly I've been eating great for a year up here with none of those effects so I'm not sure. Incidentally there is a place around the corner that also used to do texas-style brisket. It was dry but much more flavorful, just couldn't justify going back given they were overcooking the meat so much.

[LA Pork Butt]

A couple of other thoughts to throw in are cold meat attracts smoke as does moisture, So, maybe the meat is starting at room temp and there is no water pan for moisture. Or, maybe it is a combination of things. Remember smoke does really penetrate very far into the meat, but essentially attaches to the outside of the meat.

[HawkerXP]

+1

[Mister C]

Very very good points. He popped open the door at one point and I didn't get a look at whether there was a water pan in there. I'd bet a dollar though that he is not pulling meat straight out of the cooler though, just looking around at the establishment and knowing how people handle meat around here in general (that is not a criticism btw).

[Oak Smoke]

Most of the things I smoke need smoke and some char in combination to taste right, aka bark. Maybe what you’re missing is the wonderful flavor of the bark. When I first started learning to smoke on a kamado I went low and slow. I had hours of smoke but almost no bark. The flavor just wasn’t there. The edge of that brisket doesn’t look very dark or thick. I’m very picky about getting good color on ribs so that they taste right. Maybe that’s the flavor element that’s missing.

[Mister C]

Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I ate a brisket or rib that didn't have a developed bark. And indeed this one was pretty thin, and a little limp.

[Uncle Bob]

The first factor is that taste is subjective, each palate might sense something different. That said, there are multiple factors in the way smoke intensity presents. Many of them have been touched on in the comments above, but some might benefit from further expansion.

Many of the professionals who have restaurants/food trucks dedicated to BBQ have talked about how they regulate smoke flavor. One of the common pro "tricks" is to mix well seasoned wood (typically 15-20% moisture) with greener wood splits (greater than 20%). The greener splits will "smolder" more, burning less efficiently, thus producing more smoke. They'll do this at the beginning of a cook as that's when the protein has a moister surface and will take on more smoke flavor.

Others will do what they call a cold (relatively) smoke cycle, again early in the cook process. This would be a lower temperature fire, thus less efficient, that will smoke more. This is related to what some refer to as "dirty" smoke, which is a less efficient fire again. A few of the more sophisticated pellet smokers have controllers that will run for a while at the lower temperatures to intensify the smoke production, then later increase temperature, and make a "cleaner" fire, when they want sufficient temperature to complete the cook in a reasonable time frame. Another way to manipulate the efficiency of the burn is to use dampers to regulate air flow. Choke off some of the air supply and the fire burns less efficiently thus increasing smoke production. The picture you show of their smokers has dampers on the stacks but they've also added sections of stove pipe to route the smoke through the roof so the dampers are likely wide open to allow the pipe to slide over the end of the stack. My guess would be they're running wide open air flow and controlling temp by split size/quantity. Likely they are running a fire that is comparatively too efficient to produce much smoke. Some in the hobby claim that offset smokers (and other styles as well) should "only" be run with the stack wide open. Like most "rules" there are more considerations involved than simplistic statements allow. As mentioned above, we low volume home cookers tend to have wood splits that have sat around longer than the restaurants. My splits, for example, typically have 7-9% moisture content. For me to induce more smoke I find using the dampers during the early stages of the cook to be helpful in producing flavoring smoke. As for the notion of "dirty" smoke I differentiate between black/very gray smoke which I taste as acrid, and white-ish smoke which can come through as more peasant tasting smoke flavor.

Another comment you made that could be related to those folks running with wide open dampers is the dryness of the finished product. Wide open dampers typically leads to high velocity air flow that will also carry away moisture faster, potentially causing a dryer outcome. That higher velocity air flow is one of the things that makes an offset preferred by the pros for that "just right" BBQ product, but there needs to be a balance with the rest of the factors involved for that element to be beneficial. That's where the art of the process comes in...

[Mister C]

Great insights, thanks. In a funny way your point about cold cycles is probably how I've got to the finished product I'm more used to at home, ie more smoke flavor. I've yet to truly master fire management, and rarely get through the early stages of a cook without at least a little extra burn happening. Without knowing it I had my own little cold cycle going! Feels much better thinking about it that way. 😂

[Mister C]

Wow, I really want to thank you all for taking the time to read and give such thoughtful responses. I consider myself a fairly accomplished cook in general, and a pretty solid griller. Smoking however is something I feel I'm still pretty novice and hopefully on the road toward mastery someday. Your comments not only highlighted the many ways this restaurant's product may have gone astray, but they also point out the many little details that together make the difference between a really good smoked meat and an average one.

Now if you'll excuse me, I know it's Mother's Day but MCS is calling.