The truest form of barbecue is cooking over an open
fire like the cavemen. This method of cooking is tedious, slow and
allows the smoke to penetrate and flavor the meat.
Today there
are many options for adding smoke flavor to your foods. Most
people would agree that the open pit method is the
best, but
this also involves the most work. Conventional methods of "smoking" foods
achieve the result without all the work. The quickest way to
add smoke flavor is to add a liquid smoke type product to your
recipes.
These
products do not add a true smoke flavor to foods and are not
good for you on a consistent basis. We only recommend this
for adding
smoke flavor to sauces.Your gas grill can be used in a limited
capacity to smoke grilling meats.Some grills have a smoke trough
that can
be loaded with wood chips, chunks, or pellets. If your grill
does not have a trough, you can either buy a smoking box or
make your
own foil pouch for the wood chips or pellets. Typically, these
types of grills have hoods that need to be closed when using
the smoker
option. The problem with this concept is that grills cook meats
too quickly. The art of smoking is cooking the meat at low
temperature for a long period. The two concepts do not mesh.
The grilled
meat will be done too quickly and will not have the smoke flavor
that
you are seeking.
Dedicated smokers, such as the ones featured in our website
cook at low temperatures and keep the smoke in the chamber
for the appropriate
amount of time. This allows the cheaper cuts of meat to become
tender and the smoke flavor to permeate the food. We recommend
this method
because it creates the most authentic flavor, takes the least
amount of time, and is not hazardous like the liquid flavorings.
Regardless of the method that you choose to smoke your food,
we recommend using 100% natural wood pellets as the smoke
source. There is no prep
work involved in using pellets. They can be added directly
to charcoal fires, used in grill smoking troughs, or in
charcoal/water and electric
smokers. The smoke from pellets (made from compressed sawdust)
is milder and will last longer than wood chips or chunks.
The result is a more
consistently smoked product. We offer five varieties of
these pellets and sample packs for your experimentation.
They can
be found in the
smoker section of our website.
