Liquid Smoke is Good Enough, Smart Enough and Doggonit People Like it!
June 11, 2009
Still Life with Liquid Smoke
When Cheater BBQ was published, we suspected that we’d be treated like Christopher Hitchens at a Baptist convention.
Why, dear purists, do you snub liquid smoke? Isn’t it true that we tend to fear and hate things we don’t know anything about?
Can’t we all just get along?
Sure, we enjoy an all-nighter around the smoker, but sometimes that’s just not practical or possible. What about the other 359 days of the year? What no barbecue? Forget it, we’re making Cheater BBQ with liquid smoke and loving it!
Liquid smoke is just smoke from smoldering wood, trapped, chilled and condensed into a liquid form. It’s just water and smoke, not smoke and mirrors. It’s completely safe, not a weird chemical from a factory somewhere in New Jersey, and they even sell it at Whole Foods. And it makes great barbecue–anytime, anywhere, in any weather! Sure is nice to have more time to spend with the side dishes.
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July 4th, 2009 at 5:11 am
Hi!
Silly question … but I notice in your book, the recipes assume (and you all know what happens when you do THAT) that the reader is using the regular (non-concentrated) liquid smoke.
How do you convert the measurements for the regular liquid smoke to the concentrated variety? Inquiring minds (blah, blah, blah)!
Thanks ….
–gdw
July 14th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Yes, liquid smokes are all a little different and we suggest that everyone find a favorite brand. Our research on concentrates and the ones with an added ingredient or two showed pretty much no difference in taste when slow cooked with big cuts of meat. In fact, we’ve had tons of over-smoked traditional barbecue and no bitter barbecue made with liquid smoke–and we’ve been liberal with the bottled smoke as you know. We do find it weird that in many recipes calling for liquid smoke, the recipe author often makes a point to caution readers to not use too much. It’s really not that scary of a product. Of course, everyone has a different take on barbecue and smoke so by all means start by being more conservative with the concentrate especially in applications where the food is not cooked very long. Thanks for asking.