Smoking Mistakes: Not Soaking Wood Chips Long Enough
7 Comments Grilled on by gm September 7th, 2007 in Smokology
One of the mistakes I made when I used the Weber Smoker for the first time was one that plenty of novice smokers make – I didn’t smoke the wood chips long enough! If you don’t smoke the chips long enough, they burn off way too quickly and you end up churning through more chips than you really need to in the amount of time you’ve been smoking. I went through a huge bag of chips in a mere three hours… which was definitely too many chips for that amount of time. How long did I soak them? Probably only about twenty or thirty minutes, way too short!
The rule is that you should smoke soak the chips for at least an hour and then shake off the water before you toss them into the fire.
Image by brett_gullborg.
No related posts.
7 Responses to “Smoking Mistakes: Not Soaking Wood Chips Long Enough”
- 1 Pingback on Sep 15th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Leave a Reply
Search
Related Entries
WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '<li>' at line 1]
select count(*) as count from wp_yarpp_related_cache where reference_ID = <li>
WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '<li>,' ',' ') on duplicate key update date = now(), body = ' ', title = ' '' at line 1]
insert into wp_yarpp_keyword_cache (ID,body,title) values (<li>,' ',' ') on duplicate key update date = now(), body = ' ', title = ' '
In your entry you keep saying that you did not smoke your chips long enough. I assume you meant soak? How long should you soak your chips?
yeah that’s a typo, i meant soak… and you should soak them at least an hour.
Are you talking about chips (small quarter or so size pieces) or chunks (fist size). If it’s chunks, no soaking is necessary. If it’s chips, I’d suggest going to chunks. I think you’ll have better success that way. The only time I use chips is when I’m grilling to add just a hint of smoke. I don’t soak then either…just add a small handful onto the coals. There are competing thoughts about this, but I think soaked wood smolders instead of burns and can give off flavors.
hey guys.I’m new to this kina stuff.anyway so you soak the wood in water? or do you soak it in like….what a speashal juce or something?
Soak for at least an hour. You can soak in hot water, beer, whiskey, wine, fruit juices, etc. The stronger the liquid, the less time it takes to soak. I would normally use a blend of hickory and mesquite, soak in hot water for a couple hours, shake off, wrap in foil with 6 slits on top and toss it next to a burner on my grill. Usually takes about 10 mins until it starts to smoke. Happy Grilling!
I don’t soak, I just don’t care for the taste of creosote. Just to see how ineffective soaking is, take some chunk and soak it for how long you think is best. Then split it. You’ll notice the water barely penetrates the wood.
Also, if you think that wood is going to catch before the water boils out then we need to have a serious discussion about the temperature at which water vaporizes and wood burns/smokes. That goes for chips as well. All you’ve done is taken away from the most valuable smoking time when the meat is below 145 degrees.
That ain’t smoke fellas, it’s steam, and creosote. It can make your meat bitter and unpalatable.
We all know how tricky it can be to get your temp right. Then you throw water on it? Sounds incredibly silly to me. TBS boys (Thin Blue Smoke), water tends to keep the temp of your wood down and you get white smoke, white smoke is your enemy, and again, can make your meat bitter, because it’s full of particulates like creosote.