235-265 is my preferred range for pork butts, but l'll cook faster if I'm gonna wrap. I cook briskets a little faster, around 275, and the only reason I don't cook em north of 300 is I don't want to scald the butcher paper. For ribs I cook around 250, but that's because it's the temp my smoker likes. Faster is fine, though, especially if foiling. It also depends on the cooker as much or more than the cut. For instance, it's not efficient to try to cook in a wsm at 275 with water in the pan. Boiling the water washes the smoke and leaves a funny smoke flavor if you ask me.
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Ah ha! Maybe water pans are the reason for slow and low being under 250 traditionally....so oyu don't boil your water and steam your meat!
Probably so. One thing you can do with a water smoker to improve the bark is let the pan go almost dry toward the end and let the temps rise. Or just take the pan out all together. I've done that for pork butts at the very end if only using the top rack.
Another reason for traditional low and slow though, is that it's more forgiving on big cooks. For instance, while it's perfectly fine to smoke a couple slabs of ribs on a kettle over 275, it's a lot easier to over or undercook when you cook a bunch of slabs that fast on a smoker, no matter how even cooking the pit is. In other words, the time window of forgiveness gets shorter the faster you cook. On the other hand, if you warm the meat to death you'll have some jerky bark, just like if you cook too fast without wrapping. So if you think about how different kinds of smokers cook, the different kinds of cooks, big events or a meal for two, and the different methods of wrapping with foil or butcher paper, it's no secret why there's so many different opinions and why something might work for some but not everyone.
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Topic: Your best smoke temp (Read 6255 times)
