Quote:
Originally Posted by MTG#10
Interesting. Does smoke penetrate precooked meat? I have my doubts but I've never tried it.
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Short answer: yes, smoke will penetrate cooked meat. It will not produce a smoke ring though.
Caveat: bearing in mind that I've only used the sous vide method for racks of ribs about a half-a-dozen times, my experience so far is that while smoke will penetrate to some degree into cooked meats, it's pretty mild compared to using a traditional wood/charcoal-fired smoker.
The longest I've smoked a rack of ribs after sous vide is about 2.5 hours at around 200 degrees and it imparted a decent smokiness to the meat, but compared to what you can get from traditional smoking, it's about half the smokiness, IMO.
I cheated with these two sets by adding about 15 drops of liquid smoke to the 'marinade' (not a true marinade; just mayo with the liquid smoke stirred in) before brushing it on and sealing in the bags. I use mayo because it doesn't really add any flavor and makes the rub stick to the meat more easily. During cooking it just melts off.
If I were going to go without cheating I would've used about 225 degrees in the smoker and smoked the ribs for about 1.5-2 hours, or until the internal temp got up to 140 degrees max. And I would've used twice the wood chunks to produce as much smoke as possible.
But the true advantage/benefit of sous vide is the relative simplicity (set it/forget it) and the fact that you literally can't over-cook meat. Oh, and that you tend to use less than half the marinade/rub/seasoning that you would traditionally.