I've been reading some interesting stuff lately that I'd thought I would share with you all. If this is not new information to you, I apologise, but I suspect you will find this interesting.
I've been reading a book called the Modernist Cuisine at Home (ebook is $85), and stumbled across something called the 'wet bulb' temperature. The wet bulb temperature is the 'apparent temperature' that you see on the weather report. It is a combination of the dry bulb temperature (actual air temperature) and the humidity, and represents the apparent temperature to a wet object, taking account of the loss of energy due to evaporation. It is why on a humid day you feel hotter than on a dry day - because on the humid day the wet bulb temperature (apparent temperature) is hotter than the dry day, since the evaporation of your sweat is reduced. To measure the wet bulb temperature requires special instruments, basically a thermometer with a moisture wick.
What has this got to do with cooking? Everything. As is rightly pointed out on the forums, the stall when BBQing is indeed caused by the evaporation of the meat juices, which takes energy away from the meat, keeping it cooler. More precisely, what has happened is that the temperature of the meat has reached equilibrium with the wet bulb temperature inside the BBQ. So the meat temperature is not rising because, as far as the slab of wet ribs is concerned, it has reached equilibrium with the surrounding temperature. In fact, as the humidity of the air inside the BBQ decreases (which will happen as the meat surface dries out and the water pan dries up), so does the wet bulb temperature, which is why the meat temp can actually go backwards during the stall!
This article I found has a really helpful explanation and graphic: http://modernistcuisine.com/2012/08/barbecue-stall/
So, the bad news is that the meat will continue to stall until one of two things happen: the wet bulb temperature is increased, or the meat becomes a dry object.
As much as fat and gelatine somewhat mask the loss of moisture, you would all agree with me that moist meat is better than dry meat. So we need to increase the wet bulb temperature.
There are two ways to increase the wet bulb temperature, all other things being held equal. First, increase the dry bulb temperature, ie the actual temperature of the BBQ. This is sub optimal, as you will further dry out your meat. Second, increase the humidity surrounding the meat. You can increase the humidity surrounding the meat by either adding moisture to the BBQ (eg a water pan, or some other way of injecting steam into the BBQ), or trapping the air around the meat ( ie airtight wrap in foil, oven bag, vac bag etc).
So, what are your goals with your BBQed meat? Smokey, juicy tender pull apart meat plus a crunchy outside? This is not possible with a simple set-up-and-leave approach. If you really want to take your BBQing to the next level, you are going to have to address each of these goals individually. I think the old 3-2-1 method of cooking ribs (or 2-2-1 or 1-2-1 or whatever you want to argue is optimal) has helpfully separated the cooking stage into three stages, which target three things individually. I think we should consider this approach as a standard for all BBQing.
First step - add smoke flavour. This is best done when the meat is cold and wet. Always get the smoke flowing before you put your meat into the BBQ, and always have a water pan! If the water pan is causing your temps to be lower than you want them, increase your BBQ, don't remove the moisture. I'm guessing maybe a couple of hours... At most until the stall.
Second step - cook the meat and hydrolyse the collagen. This is what takes much time, as breaking down all that tough connective tissue is a slow process. However, the key at this point is to not let the meat dry out. So at the very least, wrap your meat in foil as airtight as possible. Alternatively, use an oven bag. Or seal it in a vac pac and cook it sous vide (you could even do this in the BBQ). Or use a combi oven if you have one (steam oven). Or figure out some other way of getting the humidity up inside the BBQ (I don't think that just a water pan is enough). The key at this point is to get the humidity and hence the wet bulb temperature up. And don't necessarily be afraid of the stall. In a sense, sous vide cooking is all about stalling.
Third step - crisp up the outside, or get that sticky BBQ sauce thing happening. I'm guessing that the best thing for this would be reasonably high dry heat... But you would probably want to do it quite quickly, as you don't want to dry out the rest of the meat. I'm not heaps sure on this one, but half the fun is working it out. Maybe all vents open until it's at the desired level of crispiness?
So, there it is. My thoughts on slightly modernist BBQing. I know I'm only relatively new to the BBQ scene, and am in no way an expert or competition champion or anything like that. But I feel like bringing some more science to the table is always a good thing. And if that leads us to push back a bit on the status quo of how to do things, that's ok too.
Would love your thoughts. Feel free to push back too
