Electric smokers are growing in popularity and for good reasons. They are very convenient compared to traditional smokers.
Also, they are great if you live in an apartment and can’t have a lot of smoke or fire going off in your kitchen or balcony. It’s easy to plug the smoker into an outlet, turn it on, and start smoking.
So, you may be wondering what makes soaked wood chips unique? Well, traditionally, when people smoked meat with a smoker, they would have burned their wood chips beforehand so that there was more flavor left on them.
What this means is that the wood chips were burned slowly over a long period of time, causing them to soak up a lot of the smoke, creating more smokey flavored food.
Using wood chips that weren’t soaked would produce less smokey flavored food.
How Long Does it Take to Soak Wood Chips for an Electric Smoker?
Soaking wood chips before putting them in an electric smoker is a frequently asked question that the Masterbuilt community definitely has their opinions on. It typically depends on the specific type of smoker that they have, as well as the individual preferences of each person who’s using one.
Masterbuilt recommends using wood pellet grills or wood chips to produce smoke. Hardwood chips are best for starting the smoking process happening in your smoker, as they will give you a better flavor overall.
However, if you wish to customize the flavor that your food is getting, fruitwood chips could also be used.
The choice is yours, but make sure the wood chips have been soaked for a minimum of 12 hours before cooking with them.
We recommend soaking your wood pellets so that you can enjoy the best and most even smoking possible to achieve the most authentic flavor profile possible.
Benefits of Soaking Wood Chips:
With electric smokers or other kinds of smokers, you do not need the wood chips to have been soaked beforehand. When using a smoker, it’s essential to realize that the smoke won’t only provide flavor.
It will infuse the meat with different blends of deliciousness. Most people know that, but they don’t quite understand why they would choose to soak their wood chips first before adding them to the burning embers inside their smoker.
Here are some of the benefits of using soaked wood chips:
- When you soak wood chips in water, they are able to take plenty of moisture on board. However, when used in the smoker, this actually means that the wood will need to dry out before it can be burned. For some, having to wait a little longer for their food to be cooked is helpful as this means they use less of their wood over the course of smoking their food.
- Soaking wood chips can help to retain more of the flavorful juices from the food being cooked. This results in a juicier and tastier meal, as opposed to when wood chips are not soaked first. So, this extra step is recommended for those who enjoy having succulent meat with a hint of smoked flavor before using the wood chips in a smoker.
- You’ll want to try soaking wood chips in different mixtures of juices and sauces (much like a marinade) before you use them to smoke any kind of food. This gives you the freedom to create a different particular pairing with all the other flavors that are being put together, which can make for a truly wonderful culinary experience.
Disadvantages of Soaking Wood:
Soaking wood chips is a peculiar and debatable issue, we understand. But generally speaking, soaking them can be a good idea as it helps lower their temperature and/or hydrate them. But in this portion, we are here to tell you why you do not do that:
- Soaking wood chips means that they are slowly absorbing moisture, so when placed in the smoker, they will begin to burn at a much slower pace. The main result is that it’ll take longer for your food to be smoked appropriately, otherwise known as dinner time. Not ideal if you’re starving because once you prepare all that delicious food on the barbeque, you don’t want to wait too long.
- The longer the barbecue takes to heat up means that more smoke is being given off, and as such, there’s a risk that the food will come out looking charred even though it hasn’t been thoroughly cooked.
- One of the biggest reasons people choose to soak wood chips before use is because it gives food a more robust and fuller flavor than smoke would. This is especially true if you’re, for example, smoking chicken which has a mild and somewhat sweet taste, but even then, you still want to be left wanting more.
Also See: How to Smoke Potatoes in an Electric Smoker?
Tips and Tricks to Smoke Food:
Even if you are a newbie to smoked meat or an old-school smoker guru, there’s always something interesting to learn from other people.
Try out some of these great tips below to get the most out of your cooking experience and your next smoking session!
- Do not worry if your electric does not come with a wood chip tray; you can make your own. All you need to do is just grab a foil and add some of your favorite wood chips to it. Later, make a ball of the wood chip. After that, make some of the holes in it, and it will work perfectly.
- Go with the phrase Less is more, as too much wood chip flavor can destroy the actual taste of your meat.
- White poultry meat needs to be cooked at a high temperature. They are not like red meat.
- Do not forget to season your electric smoker before you start working with it.
Wrapping It Up:
There are two main benefits of soaking your wood chips for an electric smoker. Firstly, moisture is added to the wood as it soaks, which in turn releases steam during smoking.
The water evaporating off the chips will produce smoke at a higher temperature, which leaves your food with a better taste.
Secondly, it will give you more extended usage of the soaked chips, as the moisture helps prevent them from drying out.
Whether or not you choose to soak your chips is something that you will have to decide on based on personal preference and use.
So, soaking your wood chips in a Masterbuilt electric smoker is the best decision, but not when you are starving and about to become a monster.
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