To Soak or Not Soak

[smokingmeats]

do you guy soak your wood chips/chunks prior to using them, or no?

 

[Wickedcajun]

I used to, but not anymore...

 

[LMAJ]

Nope. You want it to burn, not smolder.

 

[IamMadMan]

I never soak wood chips or wood chunks. They produce water vapor and cause poor combustion allowing small condensation droplets which could contain soot and/or tars to form on the meat.

 

[smoke ninja]

Never. This may be one thing we can all agree upon.

 

[1buckie]

for most of the kinds of smoke cooking talked about here, no.....it's just making the fire work that much harder to burn off the moisture, then flare up & do what it would anyway.............

For certain conrolled situations like very long smoking & sausages done certain ways, then maybe so....see thisL:

http://www.meatsandsausages.com/meat-smoking/wood

and this:

http://www.meatsandsausages.com/barbecue

 

[Harbormaster]

I never use chips and never soak chunks.
There is almost no water penetration on chunks anyway. You only delay the inevitable, and quite possibly create the worst possible smoke in your pit.

 

[Trunks]

When I 1st started I did but soon realized no point in doing so

 

[TXLX]

I'm no expert, but I shoot to get the wood on fire and burning clean smoke. Plus, I can't imagine all these good BBQ joints having a guy standing around and soaking wood. Good question though, I've read a lot about soaking wood.

 

[landarc]

Nope, no soaking of wood here, keep your wood dry and your fire hot

 

[ssv3]

Used to until I learned not to from this great place.

 

[DetTigersFan]

Nope... Never have.

 

[okiej]

No soaking here either. I was iffy about it at first as many recipe's call for it. I never soak now

 

[defence18]

I do. Granted, I'm using a gasser grill with wood chips wrapped in foil bc I live in an apartment building and charcoal isn't allowed. I tried once without soaking and that was the only time I got the bitter/unclean smoke flavor in my cook. Obviously it's anything goes once I get proper smoking equipment.

 

[Zin]

Never ever

 

[martyleach]

The only wood I soak is the skewers for shish kebobs

 

[RolandJT]

I don't. I think meathead had it right when he said if water really does penetrate wood easily we probably wouldn't make ships out of it :grin:

I think the net effect of soaking wood is probably just to put a little bit of water on your fire--doesn't strike me as a good idea.

 

[cliffcarter]

I never use chips and never soak chunks.
There is almost no water penetration on chunks anyway. You only delay the inevitable, and quite possibly create the worst possible smoke in your pit.

This question is a recurring one on all the BBQ forums. A couple of years ago SoEzzy over at the Smoke Ring challenged me to do some research after I had posted that I have used fresh cut apple chunks with none of the expected "bad" smoke, in fact it was all TBS and sweet smelling.
In a nutshell what I found was that in order to change the moisture content of dry wood significantly the chunks had to be soaked for days, not hours and certainly not minutes. By significant I mean changing the moisture content from 15% to 35%+ as measured by a moisture meter.
In addition it is best to take them out of the water and let them air dry for a day, minimum, before using the chunks.
I found that soaking the wood chunks in this manner kept the smoke going about twice as long as dry wood when used on a hot grill- 450°F.
When I used them in the fire box on the CG it took a very long time to produce any smoke at all, so soaking wood is useless for low and slow IMHO. BTW I consider low and slow to be under 280°.
So, to sum up, soaking wood works if it done for a long enough time and soaked wood should be used on a hot grill only.
This test was done with red maple, other woods may yield a different result( although I doubt it).
For the record I do not soak my smoke wood, IMHO it ain't worth the trouble.
Oh and I only got thin blue smoke when using soaked wood chunks, even on the CG, so for me that old saw about it producing nasty smoke is just not true. YMMV

 

[BBQ Bandit]

An alternate approach - is wood pellets in a smoking tray/wrapped foil. Its a drier alternative than chips.

 

[robbq]

I don't soak the wood either. It doesn't help anything and it seems like a bad idea to put water on a good fire.