Use BBQ Wood Chips to Intensify Your Grilling April 2, 2011 at 4:44 pm
Have a tip from the bbq experts: use BBQ wood chips to spice up your grilling. Connoisseurs realize that good barbeque takes a lot more than just slapping some meat on a grill. Renowned experts in the field such as Bobby Flay, Dave Foley, Butch Lupinetti and others swear by BBQ wood chips. With the summer grilling season here, here are some tips on how to introduce BBQ wood chips into your grilling and commence cooking like the pros.
Wood chips are used in your grill in addition to charcoal or gas. They may be sprinkled atop coals or placed in just a small smoker box in the gas or electric grill, as well as the smoke they create lends an exceptional aroma and appealing BBQ Chicken taste to all or any of your grilled meats.
Whether you use a charcoal, electric or gas grill, wood chips will provide you with authentic barbecue flavor. You can also buy a special smoker box to position in your gas or charcoal grill so that you can get that “wood smoke” flavor. See the instructions for your particular grill before you try doing this.
Ensure that your wood chips don’t end up burning being a campfire; the resulting heavy smoke will spoil the food with an acrid taste. Expert grillers advise that wood chips be soaked briefly just before use, about fifteen minutes or so, and then best barbeque grill allowed to drip dry for one few minutes more. Ideally, your wood chips will probably be damp but not saturated.
If you are using a smoker in your grill, it’s probably not necessary to soak the wood chips before you use them. Soaking wood chips will let them burn longer, but when you’re cooking a steak, you probably don’t want a long, slow grilling.
Wood chips are available in a large range of varieties that appeal to all tastes; the local vendor should be able to advise you on pairing a wood chip using a particular meat.
Generally, if your meat is lighter, you may need a milder wood chip flavor. You may also try “heavier” flavors with lighter meats, though, for example using mesquite with chicken. If you are going to do this, try using a few wood chips rather than a lot to see what this does to your flavor.
Using its more delicate aroma, alder wood chips best accompany lighter meats like fish and poultry. The flavorful fruitwoods, including apple, cherry, peach and plum, go best with veal, poultry and pork, and in addition they lend an interesting taste to grilled vegetables.
Mesquite BBQ wood chips, probably the most famous variety, go best with heavier meats like beef, lamb and duck. Also extremely popular, the resonant aroma of hickory goes best with beef and pork.
Remember that BBQ wood chips are a flavor enhancer rather than the meal itself, so don’t skimp on your meats! Make sure you possess a good cut that’s fresh and barbeque grill well prepared. Otherwise, your fancy wood chips will you should be going to waste with an inferior piece of meat that no amount of grilling expertise can retrieve.
Using BBQ wood chips takes us to that glorious time when perfect cooking was done by using an open wood fire. Don’t accept just a plain old grilled steak or bland chicken breast cooked on bare coals. Cook just like a pro and enjoy the vibrant aromas and flavors that come from cooking with BBQ wood chips.
