Smoked and barbecued meats have continued to gain popularity in recent years, however, no consensus exists on the best methods for preparation. Several smoker types and many varieties of wood are used for smoking meat in the restaurant industry and by amateur “pit‐masters.” In this research, pork was smoked with an outdoor offset smoker and an indoor electric smoker using four wood types: hickory, apple, oak, and mesquite. Descriptive and consumer acceptance tests were conducted to evaluate the different treatments and determine drivers of liking. Pork smoked with the offset smoker using hickory wood had the highest overall acceptance. Appearance characteristics, such as intensity of red color, were the top drivers of liking for the smoked pork product. Practical Application This research demonstrates the drivers of liking for smoked pork products commonly found in American barbecue, specifically Kansas City‐style barbecue. The results have application in both retail and restaurant environments and can be used to produce an optimized smoked pork product.

It has been established that consumers are capable of hedonic judgments, but their role beyond hedonics continues to be debated. Many novel methodologies, such as sorting, word association, napping, flash profiling, and so forth, have been extensively developed and used in the past few decades to describe, differentiate, and classify products while gathering consumer terminology, using untrained or semi‐trained assessors to meet cost and time commitments. This study was designed to provide another way to document consumer perceptions using their own terminology and explore analysis options by assessing “open‐ended” responses. A total of 149 consumers from the Kansas City area evaluated smoked pork prepared using electric and offset smokers and four wood types (apple, oak, hickory, and mesquite). The prompted terms provided information about the attributes that drive consumers' likes and dislikes using their own language. Correspondence analysis was used to obtain a plot of the samples based on consumers' descriptions. Open‐ended questions highlighted textural attributes as a chief modality, driving consumers' “tasty” perception, backed by 9‐point liking data. Offset smoked pork was liked more by consumers than pork smoked using an electric smoker. Practical Applications Findings from this study contribute to methodology understanding, applicability, and further developments when collecting consumer terminology to assess sensory differentiation among products. The use of open‐ended questions as a stand‐alone method for terminology generation has been highlighted in this experiment. Additionally, consumer terminology was generated to uncover the key attributes of a product. In this case, we used the famous Kansas City‐style barbeque as an example that could help pit masters, food developers, chefs, and others working in the hospitality/culinary or restaurant industry perfect their classic recipes using consumer friendly terms.

It has been established that consumers are capable of hedonic judgments, but their role beyond hedonics continues to be debated. Many novel methodologies, such as sorting, word association, napping, flash profiling, and so forth, have been extensively developed and used in the past few decades to describe, differentiate, and classify products while gathering consumer terminology, using constrained or semi-trained assessors to meet costand time commitments. This study was designed to provide another way to document consumer perceptions using their own terminology and explore analysis options byassessing “open-ended” responses. A total of 149 consumers from the Kansas City area evaluated smoked pork prepared using electric and offset smokers and four wood types (apple, oak, hickory, and mesquite). The prompted terms provided information about theattributes that drive consumers' likes and dislikes using their own language. Correspondence analysis was used to obtain a plot of the samples based on consumers' descriptions. Open-ended questions highlighted textural attributes as a chief modality, driving consumers' “tasty” perception, backed by 9-point liking data. Offset smoked pork was liked more by consumers than pork smoked using an electric smoker.