How To Smoke Food

Barbeque cooking is very easy to undertake. At the same time, it adds a great taste and aroma to the frozen as well as other food stuffs. You can smoke, roast and grill fruits, vegetables as well as frozen fish, salmon, beef, pork, ham, turkey and chicken. Although cooking on a charcoal or gas grill is very effortless, you need to maintain the optimum temperature. If you want to smoke any frozen food, you should take extra care, because you would neither want to burn the food, nor over-smoke it. In this article, we have provided tips and instructions on how to smoke food.

Smoking Food On Gas Grill

In order to smoke food in a gas grill, you need to dip the wood chips in water, at least one hour prior to the smoking process. You may also make use of aromatic twigs for the purpose. Soak them for about 30 minutes, before starting the process.
Turn on the fire of the gas grill. You may smoke food on medium to high flame. Beginners are suggested to smoke food on a medium flame.
The next step is to drain and shake off excess water from the soaked wood. Place the drained wood on the fire.
In case your gas grill is equipped with a smoker box attachment, fill the water pan on the attachment with hot tap water, before turning on the fire.
Now, place the presoaked chunks of wood in the compartment. Be sure to do it as directed in the user's guidebook (of the gas grill).
Place the food on the grill's rack. Cover it with a lid.
Make sure to adjust the temperature of the grill, food and water pan once in an hour, while smoking the foodstuff.
When you have smoked your food optimally, turn off the gas grill. Leave the food for about five minutes on the grill, before transferring it to the serving plate. Make use of oven mitt to handle the hot, smoked food.

Smoking Food On Charcoal Grill

Soak wood chips for about half an hour before using them for smoking food. Place about 50 charcoal briquettes on the grill, depending upon the size of the grill.
Add about ½ cup of lighter fluid to the grill, in order to soak the briquettes. Wait for few minutes, until the fluid gets fully soaked by the charcoal.
Ignite the charcoal, once the lighter fluid gets fully soaked into it. Make use of a long-handled lighter, to avoid injury due to fire. Let the fire spread onto each piece of charcoal.
Rearrange the briquettes, once the fire has died down in the charcoal, by using fire tongs. The briquettes should be arranged in such a way that they spread around the drip pan.
Place the drip pan in the center of the grill, in such a way that the briquettes are on either side.
Wait for about 20 minutes or more, until all the charcoal pieces are covered with white ash.
Cover the drip pan two-third, with liquid. For the purpose, you may make use of water, apple juice or wine. Add spices, vegetables or herbs to the liquid, to make it aromatic and provide extra flavor to your food.
Now, it is the time to place the wood chips on the charcoals, directly. This will provide you the required smoke.
Grease the food grate with a non-stick cooking spray and then place it on the charcoal grill.
Place the food directly over the drip pan. Cover the grill using a lid.
Keep the top vent of the charcoal grill open, so that the food is not over smoked.
Adjust the temperature of the grill by making adjustments in the bottom vent of the set up. The optimum temperature for smoking food is 225 to 250 degrees F.
Remove the food from the grill, after it is fully smoked.

Tips

While smoking food on a gas grill, make sure that the water pan is full. Refill it with hot tap water, whenever needed.
Cover the food with a lid, because heat and smoke escape each time the lid is lifted. This also increases the cooking time.
Make use of aromatic wooden sticks such as apple and cherry sticks for pork and poultry, alder chips for salmon and chicken, and hickory chips for beef and ham. The wooden sticks would increase the flavor and taste of the food.
Ensure that you have chosen only that foodstuff, which taste good when smoked.

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