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Use BBQ Wood Chips to Intensify Your Grilling
from:Take a tip from the experts: use BBQ wood chips to spice up your grilling. Connoisseurs know 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 many others swear by BBQ wood chips. With the summer grilling season upon us, here are some tips on how to introduce BBQ wood chips into your grilling and start 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 within a small smoker box in a gas or electric grill, and the smoke they create lends a distinctive aroma and appealing taste to all of your grilled meats.
BBQ wood chips take your grilling to a whole new level. Whether you have an electric, gas or charcoal BBQ you can add wood chips to get authentic barbecue flavor. There are special smoker boxes that can be placed in your gas and charcoal grills to add that special wood smoke flavor. Make sure you read the instructions for your grill before trying 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.
If you're 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 if 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 cater to all tastes; your local vendor should be able to advise you on pairing a wood chip with a particular meat.
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.
Alder wood chips have a mild flavor and are recommended for use with seafood and pork. Fruit wood chips are also mild and are best used with poultry, veal and pork. Fruit woods include apple and cherry.
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.
When you barbecue, your first focus should be the meat. A substandard cut of meat is not going to be improved significantly by the wood chip you use. Make sure the meat you get is fresh and comes from a reputable supplier.
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.
About the Author:
Ashley King loves to barbecue, and is editor of the Home and Garden Section at i-KnowHow | Information for Life, where you'll also find ideas and tips on family, hobbies, personal finance, technology basics and much more.
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