I have been told different things, and seen different things. Should I been wrapping my pulled pork, lamb and brisket.
Not getting good results.
Also when using as a BBQ should I use heat deflectors, found some of the food tasted bitter was this from the fat burning?
by k1ngd0ng69
11 Comments
Gotta be safe. Wrap it, don’t risk it
Jokes aside, never wrap. Just bump the heat. I don’t want the meat to sweat in the foil and ruin my bark. Most meat does stop absorbing smoke around 120130 tho. Leaving it unwrapped isn’t going to add smoke into the meat
What’s your fire and smoke situation? Bitterness can come from too much smoke or putting meat on too early before you let your fire develop
If I can get away with it, I never wrap it, but if you’re worried about it, wrap it up.
I always use deflectors when smoking. Never direct heat. Use a drip pan underneath, too, saves spewing meat juices all over the deflectors. But when using as a bbq, it varies on what I’m cooking. Generally I use indirect to start and then use some direct heat to finish and add char.
As for wrapping, I always do, but that’s because I don’t have time to smoke for an eternity waiting for the stall to pass. Everyone will tell you their own opinion though. When I wrap, I add something like orange juice or pineapple juice, along with some butter, brown sugar and some of the rub I used on the meat, that is, if I’m doing pulled pork for example.
I don’t wrap pork shoulders. Foil boat briskets after I’m satisfied with the bark, usually around 170° F. I don’t spritz for either.
My setup is sloroller, heat deflector, drip pan, grates.
If you want the difinitive answer buy Meathead’s book. He proved that “the stall” is heat loss due to evaporative cooling as the moisture leaves the meat.
As others have said – indirect heat only, wrap to decrease cooking time, unwrap to create bark.
It depends, I don’t do brisket very much, but I do feel like it benefits from a wrap, pork shoulders for pulled pork, the don’t benefit from a wrap.
You have to pay attention to the smoke, white smoke is bad, you have to let the grill come up to temp and wait for the smoke to turn a very pale, translucent blue, that’s the good smoke, white smoke will burn your eyes and make you want to cough, that gives the bitter flavor.
Yes but with the KJ its so insulated and uses such little air flow, it keeps moisture in really well.
My two cents.
For brisket, wrap it with butcher paper once it hits 165°. Tinfoil creates a different environment that dries out the meat and fries the bottom half if you aren’t extremely careful with the temperature.
Finish pork butt and crutch pork ribs in tinfoil. At the point of wrapping, you could finish in the oven as the meat does not get any more flavor infusion once wrapped.
When we cook whole hogs over charcoal, there is no wrapping, and the smoke flavor comes more from the burst of fat flaming as the fat hits the coals than from the coals themselves.
Check out some of Smoking Dad BBQ’s *early* videos on KJ basics (his later videos get into weird wastes of time). That should give you a good start.