Friday, January 9, 2009

Use BBQ Wood Chips to Intensify Your Grilling

By Ashley King

There is nothing better then BBQ meat that has been cooked or smoked with wood chips. If you are an avid griller then you already know the reason for using BBQ wood chips. But many people have no idea what the big deal is about this product.

Wood chips are very small pieces of wood that are added to your BBQ to create smoke. If you are not using a wood fire to cook your food, then the only way you are going to get a true smoke flavor is by adding wood to your fire.

Using BBQ wood chips can send your grilling into the stratosphere. Whether you use a charcoal, gas or electric grill, wood chips will give you authentic barbecue flavor. You can also buy a special smoker box to place in your gas or charcoal grill so that you can get that "wood smoke" flavor. Read the instructions for your particular grill before you try doing this.

Make sure that your wood chips do not end up burning like a campfire; the resulting heavy smoke will spoil your food with an acrid taste. Expert grillers advise that wood chips be soaked briefly prior to use, about fifteen minutes or so, and then allowed to drip dry for just a few minutes more. Ideally, your wood chips will be damp but not saturated.

When using a small smoker in your grill you don't necessarily have to soak your BBQ wood chips first. Although soaked wood chips burn longer, if you are cooking a steak you might not need them to burn for that long.

Wood smoking chips or BBQ wood chips are available in a wide variety of flavors. They go from mesquite and hickory all the way to cabernet. The stores that sell BBQ wood chips will have flavor guides to help you wade your way through the new age of wood chips.

In general, if your meat is lighter, you'll need a milder wood chip flavor. You can also try "heavier" flavors with lighter meats, though, such as using mesquite with chicken. If you're going to do this, try using a few wood chips instead of a lot to see what this does to your flavor.

With 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 they also lend an interesting taste to grilled vegetables.

Maple and hickory BBQ wood chips have a strong flavor and are best used with beef, pork and poultry. Beef, duck and lamb go well with the strong mesquite wood chips, and oak, another strong flavor, is good with beef and ham.

But remember that barbecuing is all about the meat. If you don't have a good piece of meat, there is no wood chip in existence that will make your meat taste any better. Make sure your meat or chicken is fresh and from a reputable butcher.

Using BBQ wood chips takes us back to that glorious time when all good cooking was done on an open wood fire. Don't settle for just a plain old grilled steak or bland chicken breast cooked on bare coals. Cook like a pro and enjoy the vibrant aromas and flavors that come from cooking with BBQ wood chips.

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