dan wrote:

> Last week I bbq'ed two boneless pork butts and had great smoke penetration
> and flavor 1/2"+ smoke ring. This week I did two more butts and had almost
> no smoke ring and very little smoky flavor 1/8"- smoke ring.
>
> They were treated the same with the same rub and handleing. The only
> difference was that within the first hour of q'ing the second set of butts
> the q'er temperature spiked well into the "to hot " range for a while.

Bingo. I was talking Q with a distant cousin in Mississippi
a few weeks ago, and he observed that the proteins "close up"
as they start to heat up, so it's important to maintain a
relatively low heat at first, after I'd mentioned that meat
doesn't seem to take much smoke after an hour or two.

I can't help but wonder if this isn't a key element of HiQ -
a slow start followed by the higher cooking temperatures.

Cheers,
Dana