Smoking Mistakes: Not Soaking Wood Chips Long Enough
Grilled on 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.
4 Responses to “Smoking Mistakes: Not Soaking Wood Chips Long Enough”
- 1 Pingback on Sep 15th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
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.