Up for Review

How to use a Smoker Grill

Posted on August 14th, 2007 by reviewer.
Categories: Home.

Any discussion of Grills and Smokers leads to a very important question.

How do you use a smoker grill?

The first thing to think about what sort of meat you have and what flavor you want to impart. In short you have to pick the right wood chips for what you’re cooking. Yardandpool carries a line of grilling wood chips for smoker grills. Before we get into blends we need to talk about the basics of wood chip choice

Don’t use softwood

If you’re a mountain man you probably think pine flavored meat is a good idea but you’re probably better off rubbing that pine car air freshener on your meat than using actual pine wood.

Like most soft woods, pine carries a high amount of tar and other nasty stuff that has a way of infusing it self into the meat it’s cooking to spoil a good dinner and make you think you’re eating smoker meat (as in a cow that died of lung cancer). Beyond that the limits are pretty much endless.

The right wood

In truth some woods work better than others for certain meats. We’ll start with the big hitters before discussing blends.

Apple Wood Chips

Apple wood chips are classically used to on soft flavored meats. Normally fowl such as chicken and turkey but is also a favorite for pork and ham. Apple wood gives off a sweet taste and is therefore the best for sweet meats like those already discussed.

Alder Wood Chips

Alder wood is a less well known wood among the layman and yet it is practically essential to the pros when grilling fish and vegetables. Because fish generally has a stronger taste it requires a rich flavorful compliment to really make a difference.

Oak Wood Chips

Oak has a more classically hearty flavor that is perfect for that mother of all delicious meats, steak. Other meats such as game and wild turkey also do well with Oak smoking which smooths out that gamey taste. Just like soft wood shouldn’t be used to smoke meat using hard wood (Oak is one of the hardest) ensures cleaner, richer flavor.

Quick Meat Guide

The above link is quick reference guide of which meats go best with which woods. Rather than going through each wood and what it works best with it is probably more effective to show which meats go best with which woods. Check out the link for more info

Master blends

Rather than just using a single wood to smoke, multiple woods can be blended to create a complimentary melody of flavors. This is a master grilling technique and should not be taken lightly. With great power comes great responsibility and every grill master knows that mixing the wrong flavors could result in a cataclysmic chain reaction destroying flavor forever.

Ok, well it isn’t that serious.

In reality experimenting with your own flavor combinations can be pretty fun and yield some really tasty gems. Before you get started you may want to try a pre-mixed wood chip bag to see what mixing can do for your grilling. Yard and Pool has a few inexpensive wood chip blends

Conclusion

Grilling is exciting and tasty, choose your woods carefully and you’ll enjoy the experience!