How to choose a wood chip flavor for grilling

what's up y'all i am brad pros and we are going to talk about wood flavor pairings with your barbecue and grilling this video today is brought to you by western premium barbecue products they have a lot of great varieties of different woods for both smoking and grilling now there's a lot of different woods and they do a lot of different things so i'm going to try to keep it simple and break it into three categories we're going to look at mild medium and strong smoke flavors and i'll talk about each of them all right let's start with apple this is one of the mild smoke flavors it's a nice gentle flavor that's going to be really ideal for any foods that have like a higher level fat content such as pork salmon or even vegetables that are seasoned with some oil and fats some of my favorite ways to use apple is actually to mix it with some other blends too to kind of amp up that overall smoke profile with like bacon ham or pork ribs all right where's the maple all right here we go maple it really is just as it sounds if you're thinking maple syrup it's very similar to that when it imparts that flavor onto the food so think breakfast sausages bacon ribs a lot of times this is used to cut down some of the stronger flavors like post oak or mesquite maple's also really good with baking so if you're thinking fresh bread cookies or really any kind of baked goods like a skillet brownie now i'm really hungry all right next up we got cherry wood cherry is great for anything pork think smoked sausages or ham or ribs a lot of times cherry wood is used as a filler and blends as well despite its dark color that it's going to give off to the meat it actually has a pretty mild flavor it's a little sweet but it's actually a little bit more tart than anything else it's very rare that i'll use cherry on its own i'll typically mix it with another stronger flavor profile pork is ideal but anytime you want to amp up that smoke color cherry wood okay moving on to the medium smoke flavors i'm going to start with hickory now if you're new to smoking this is definitely where you want to start everybody recognizes hickory flavor and it's probably one of the most widely accepted flavors when it comes to smoking food the biggest reason bacon everybody loves bacon or at least they should the flavor of hickory is really robust and sweet but surprisingly it is considered more of a medium flavor because it doesn't overwhelm the food like mesquite wood if you're using only hickory and you're cooking something for a long time the flavor can actually turn a little bit pungent so i do recommend mixing hickory with something like maple or apple to kind of round out those flavors all right now we're gonna grab my personal favorite pecan pecan pecan so pecan is very similar to hickory but it actually does give off that slightly nutty flavor and the reason why i really like this is because of the color that it gives to seafood and poultry everything just gets that nice bronze tan like it's been putting on some suntan lotion all day and the smell is incredible it really does smell like roasted pecans pecans pecans i highly recommend using this with anything poultry including turkey and duck a lot of pit masters swear by using this for brisket so try it with some big cuts of beef now this one might surprise you but this is considered a medium flavor smoke post oak and when you probably hear that you're probably thinking traditional texas barbecue a central texas barbecue swears by post oak however different regions of texas will use different woods such as pecan what's interesting about post oak is it actually produces a heavy amount of smoke but it's got a medium flavor anytime you just want smoke flavor and you're not looking for a sweet or tart or nutty profile post oak is the way to go this is probably my most used because i will use it in a combination of one or a few of these different flavors when i'm just trying to create a bigger profile anytime you're going to be grilling steaks or burgers post oak is probably my recommendation to sprinkle right over the coals just to give that really strong kiss of smoke last but not least we've got mesquite living in arizona i am surrounded by mesquite trees mesquite is interesting because it's sweet it's spicy it's smoky and it almost has this bite like you're biting into a piece of cinnamon now mesquite is pretty strong so it's very rare that i will use it on its own a lot of times i will pair it with something else some of my favorite combinations would be mesquite and post oak to kind of balance out that flavor or mesquite and pecan where you get that amazing color and that nuttiness but you also get the sharp flavors from mesquite the times i like to use mesquite because it's so strong are usually for shorter smokes think chicken wings split chickens or smoked burgers they don't take very long and it's just enough flavor to really punch that food now mesquite is one of the few woods out of the list that i would not recommend just sprinkling right on charcoal it burns hot and fast so it could really increase the temperature of your grill and it could actually burn the food this again i would use a foil pack fill it with mesquite and one of your other flavors get that heated up and then you can get going it doesn't matter if you're going to be using wood chunks or wood chips the flavors are going to be the same across the board check out some of the other tutorials on how to use wood chips and other wood products cheers

Channel: westernbbqproducts

Views: 28,131

Keywords: grilling wood chips, wood chip flavors, bbq wood chips, wood chips, wood for grilling, different woods for smoking, smoking wood flavors, wood for smoking, wood for smoking meat, wood for smoking beef, wood for smoking bbq, wood for smoking chicken, wood for smoking pork, wood for smoking ribs, wood for smoking chicken wings, wood for smoking food, best wood for smoking, what is the best wood for smoking, what wood should i use for smoking, smoking wood for bbq

Id: OHEuKq59AQw

Length: 5min 14sec (314 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 06 2022