A smoker box is the best tool to render that amazing smoky flavour to beef, chicken, pork, turkey, mushrooms and various other food items as they are placed on the grill. These boxes come in various materials including wood, aluminium and steel. Stainless steel smoker boxes are considered to be the best choice. However, just getting a smoker box wouldn’t help if you do not know how to use it appropriately. In this article, we shall acquaint you with the correct technique to use a smoker box for grill. So, read on!
Simple Steps to Use a Smoker Box
So, you have bought a good quality smoker box that has the capacity to withstand high temperature, is water and rust resistant, can hold adequate amount of wood chips, has a hinged lid to facilitate easy access and fits your grill well? Great! It is time now to go through the below mentioned steps to learn how to use it efficiently:
- Begin the process by soaking the wood chips in water, alcohol or any other liquid that is deemed safe for this purpose. Leave them soaked for around an hour. You may choose wood chips of any flavour including apple, peach or cherry to name a few.
- The next step would be to pre-heat the grill. Turning on the burners on high flame for about 15 minutes should suffice the need if you have a gas grill.
- By the time the grill is getting pre-heated, just fill the smoker box with soaked wood chips.
- It is time now to place the smoker box in the pre-heated grill. It should carefully be placed between the bars and grill grates.
- Within half an hour you will notice the smoke coming out of the grill.
- You can now add different food items on the grates and watch them grill and infuse with smoke.
Wood Chips – To Soak or Not to Soak?
As mentioned above, wood chips should be soaked for around an hour before using them. However, you may have come across certain tutorials where in these are used as it is. So, the question arises as to which technique is correct? The simple answer to this is – both! Nevertheless, it is always better to soak the wood chips before starting with the procedure. This is because soaked chips last for a longer time as they burn slowly. So, they will emit more smoke. But in case you are running short of time then just add plain ones to the smoker box and get started with the grilling procedure.
We hope this gives you a fair idea about the various technicalities related to the use of a smoker box as well as flavourful wood chips so as to create that irresistible aroma and taste. Just follow these simple steps and get ready to enjoy your favourite smoked food. Don’t forget to share your experience of using this little magic box and also as to how the food finally turned out with this technique.