Smoking Myth: soaking wood chips vs not soaking before you start smoking
My youngest daughter Jessy started crying out loud. My neighboring aunt thought her teenage daughter was poking Jessy. So, she comes to our backyard and gets Jessy alone. She tries to know the reason for her crying and what she come to know is -
Jessy came to know from Google that 1 pound of wood chips can smoke for 3 hours, but her 3 pounds of wood chips finished in less than 1 hour. I think, now you can imagine the rest of the story.
However, like my Jessy, so many other amateur cooks face this thing when smoking meat for the first time. So, they start looking for a solution and come to know that soaking can enhance the smoking time of any wood chips, which is not actually true.
Yap, it’s not true. Smoking time of any bbq wood chips depends on several things. Temperature and size of those chips play a big role here. You can get the expected result only when you let your chips smoke at 175°F to 200°F. And the size of your chips shouldn’t be less than 1 inch.
But, the size of the smoking chips which Jessy was using is much smaller than the suggested size. Moreover, you’ll be shocked to know that soaking wood chips will completely destroy the amazing taste of your BBQ foods.
As you know, to impart a delicious smoky flavor, you need thin blue smoke. But, soaking makes the wood chips produce thick and black smoke which causes the taste to go bad.
There’s one more thing to consider before going to soak BBQ chips, it’s the brand and model of your smoker.
I’m always a great fan of electric smokers. It’s very easy to operate this type of smoker. It’s so easy that my 7 years old Jessy never faces any problem to smoke with our Masterbuilt smoker. If you are also a happy user of this top favorite electric smoker and like to know the details of using wood chips, then this guide is waiting for you.
