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So my dad got a smoker on African-American Friday and I was thinking of getting him a few bags of wood chips to use with it. However I came across a few that had wood pellets. Is there really much of a difference between wood chips and wood pellets? I'd imagine the chips would give more of an authentic taste to it compared to the pellets. The bag of pellets I saw threw me off a little with its wording... "Wood flavoring." Anyone have a preference?
You will definitely get better flavor / better smoke from wood chunks or chips over pellets but high quality pellets should be just fine. What kind of smoker did he get?
So my dad got a smoker on African-American Friday and I was thinking of getting him a few bags of wood chips to use with it. However I came across a few that had wood pellets. Is there really much of a difference between wood chips and wood pellets? I'd imagine the chips would give more of an authentic taste to it compared to the pellets. The bag of pellets I saw threw me off a little with its wording... "Wood flavoring." Anyone have a preference?
It depends on the smoker, some are pellet only smokers. But for taste/flavor, you can't beat wood chips
My first smoked turkey came out absolutely perfect, my gf said my ribs are still her favorite, but the turkey definitely is a close second. It was a lot of work, and I was nervous since I never smoked something this big before, but it came out wonderfully. I started with a frozen 14 lb bird. IMG_20161124_223603890_zpskg4gza9a.jpg
I used a lot of herbs in this rub as well, I looked up what was in poultry spice and incorporated all but nutmeg into my rub IMG_20161124_223610739_zpsbazcdaql.jpg
I went back and forth about injecting, but since I didn't want to use a water pan I decided to inject instead. I melted butter and mixed it with chardonnay and injected all over the breasts and legs, this added a TON of flavor and moisture to the meat and I definitely will do this again in the future IMG_20161125_155551405_zpsavrnyb53.jpg
I got this trick from a member on a different forum, I melted more butter with some chardonnay and soaked some cheesecloth in the butter/wine mix and laid it over the bird IMG_20161125_163955077_zpsu1oazl1z.jpg
I smoked over hardwood lump charcoal with apple wood chips, this was my first time using apple, but it was the perfect choice for this. An hour in, you can see the cheesecloth on top and the coloring, I basted and rotated every half hour IMG_20161125_174302495_zpsvwctqage.jpg
The flavor was incredible, and you kept getting different hints of spices, herbs and smokey flavor, the drumsticks were the first to go in the kitchen IMG_20161125_211454512_zpsq2nujufr.jpg
You will definitely get better flavor / better smoke from wood chunks or chips over pellets but high quality pellets should be just fine. What kind of smoker did he get?
Originally Posted by 97BlackAckCL
It depends on the smoker, some are pellet only smokers. But for taste/flavor, you can't beat wood chips
I believe an electric smoker. He bought it at Cabela's. It's decent! It was about $200. It did come with a couple bags of wood chips, but there was a part of me thinking there might be a possibility someone would say wood pellets would be better as far as burn length or flavor. Wood chips it is, then! I can get a variety pack off Amazon for cheap.
Ack - your bird looks very tasty! What made you go with apple wood? Also what made you use cheese cloth?
I had bought the apple chips a while back, and figured it would be a nice light wood to smoke with. My go to is cherry, but I wanted to try something different
The cheese cloth was a suggestion from a member on another forum I'm on, he suggested it for roasting, but I figured it would work well for smoking to help keep the basting on the skin, it worked super well!
Almost forgot, in addition to the smoked turkey, I also made smoked deviled eggs. Smoked for about a half hour with cherry wood. Great smokey flavor, both the eggs and yolks. So good!
They are great, I ate a smoked hard boiled egg first and it was great on it's own. The recipe that I found said to smoke for 20 minutes and I think this is plenty. I stretched it to 30 because they didn't have consistent brown coloring, but I think 20 mins of smoke would be good. I used cherry wood after the apple was mostly gone and highly recommend it. They are very good, and some of the best deviled eggs I've ever made. Looking forward to trying them again tonight after the yolks have soaked up the other flavors
I had some issues with my thermometers not reading grill temp correct so the meat was a bit more done than I hoped, but it was still incredibly juicy and flavorful. The leg of lamb absolutely blew my mind and was incredible!
I smoked a ham Christmas Eve. I took a picture before, but between the beer and Goldschlager, I completely forgot to get a picture of the finished product.
Anyone use their smoker to make jerky? I picked up a two pound eye of round yesterday, sliced it into 1/4" strips, marinaded it overnight, and hung the strips from bamboo skewers in my MES. I'm using the mailbox mod and a 6" Amazen pellet tube 3/4 filled with a mix of hickory and apple wood pellets. Can't wait to see how it turns out!
The jerky turned out FANTASTIC! I will never buy jerky again. I used the recipe I found at the below site and let it go for 7 hours with no water in the pan and sprinkled the jerky with extra ground pepper before smoking it to give it a little more bite. It had the perfect balance of spice,sweetness, and smoke and instead of experimenting, I'll probably just stick with this recipe from now on. It was that good. Since the jerky isn't cured it's best to keep it in the refrigerator or you can freeze it for months.
11-22-2016, 03:25 PM
It was about $200. It did come with a couple bags of wood chips, but there was a part of me thinking there might be a possibility someone would say wood pellets would be better as far as burn length or flavor. Wood chips it is, then! I can get a variety pack off Amazon for cheap.
I used the recipe I found at the below site and let it go for 7 hours with no water in the pan and sprinkled the jerky with extra ground pepper before smoking it to give it a little more bite. It had the perfect balance of spice,sweetness, and smoke and instead of experimenting, I'll probably just stick with this recipe from now on. It was that good. Since the jerky isn't cured it's best to keep it in the refrigerator or you can freeze it for months.
