the smoke ring and the egg

Celtic Wolf

and you assume way too much, but you feel free to go on questioning.. It keeps the rest of us on our toes..

Celtic Wolf

I will not argue the validity of calling Sodium Nitrate a salt. It is as I have always been taught a salt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_nitrate While Wiki can be notoriously wrong at times it was the first reference that popped up. I'll be happy to post others if you wish.

Matt

I never said sodium nitrate is not a salt -- clearly it is because it is the product of neutralizing (e.g.) nitric acid with sodium hydroxide. The point of my comment was simply that the sodium is not necessary in the reactions that produce the smoke ring. It appears to be caused purely by the dissociation of nitric acid in water -- there is no salt necessary, unless I am missing something.

Celtic Wolf

I am sure that this will cause a stir, but if you insist.

Unless you are in the habit of pouring Nitic Acid on your meat the Nitrogen has to come from somewhere. Most times it comes from Sodium Nitrate which exists naturally in all organic matter. Whether it comes from the flavor wood we burn or artificially from adding compounds like Tender Quick or Nitric Acid is irrelevant. SMOKE is NOT necessary to produce a smoke ring.

To end this argument Potassium Nitrate, or Potassium Nitrite will work too, but they don't come from the wood we burn.

Matt

I also never said that smoke was necessary for the smoke ring.

If you look at my original post, I simply hypothesized a mechanism by which a smoke ring can form in the absence on a nitrate salt, but in the presence of nitric acid, which is quite a different beast altogether.

I postulated that nitrogen dioxide produced from burning wood in the presence of oxygen could dissolve in the water at the meat surface, thereby producing nitric acid and, thus, a smoke ring -- in the absence of any nitrate salt.

I'm sorry you view this as an argument. I am just trying to better understand what is going on.

Celtic Wolf

Where did the nitrates come from to produce the nitric acid that is formed by burning wood?

The sodium nitrates in the wood that the fire broke down to form Nitric acid..

Nitric acid does not exist in organic matter naturally.

Matt

That may be true, but it still doesn't seem to me that it is necessary to have any salt (either added or formed via reaction) on the meat in order for the smoke ring to form -- which is the crux of my point.

Fidel

If you were, in fact, claiming that the nitrate salts were necessary in your original post, then why did you say it was necessary to have salt in the rub?

Are you in the habit of adding nitrates to your rubs? Can you not see that the normal everyday person reading your post would infer that without "salt in the rub" they wouldn't get a smoke ring? I am merely trying to clarify that you do not need "salt in the rub".

Why not just admit that your original post contained incorrect information instead of continuing to twist and torture the meaning of the word "salt" to make yourself appear to be correct?

Celtic Wolf

The only part of my original post that was wrong was leaving the S off of salts. As I said whether the salts are present in the wood we burn or by adding chemical additives is irrelevant.. SMOKE is not necessary to produce a SMOKE ring..

It seems you don't want to see that, because you are too busy once again trying to correct me. Before you launch another diatribe about not singling me out, why are you only commenting on my post when someone else told you the same thing..

I am through arguing with you..

Fidel

Who else said you had to have salt in the rub to get a smoke ring? If you are implying thirdeye said that then you need to read his post again.

fishlessman

i like them both, the fast cooked ones are almost fall apart, more similar to a steak/potroast cross, the low and slow takes to bbq sauce better. they are both good but they are different, fortunatly with a newengland crowd no one knows any different :laugh:

fishlessman

wonder if it had to do with not understanding the way temps are in an egg at the time, back then there was a trend to cook are much lower domes than the 250 we cook at today. ill toss some briquettes in next time to see how much more it produces.