Mastering the Grill_ The Owner's Manual for Outdoor Cooking - Andrew Schloss [25]
Soaked chips and chunks should last nearly as long as charcoal, which means you’ll need to add more wood after about 45 minutes to 1 hour of indirect grilling. Chunks will last slightly longer than chips. For several hours of indirect grilling, keep extra soaked chips or chunks on hand.
On a gas grill, the process is similar, with a few exceptions. You can’t put the wood directly onto the burner, so you need to contain it somehow. If your gas grill has a smoker box, simply fill the box with soaked wood chips or chunks. If you don’t have a smoker box or tray, make a smoking packet or smoker tray with aluminum foil. For a flat smoking packet, wrap a single layer of soaked wood in foil; the single layer exposes more surface area of the wood to the heat and creates more smoke. Poke several large holes in the top of the packet to allow smoke to escape. For an open smoker tray, crimp the foil into a makeshift rectangular pan or tray and fill it with a layer of chips. Put the smoker box, packet, or tray directly over one of your grill burners under the grill grate, or over the dedicated smoker burner if your grill has one. Heat the burner to high. Wait until you see smoke, about 10 to 15 minutes, and then adjust the heat for the food you are cooking. Cook with the lid down to trap the smoke, and replenish the wood chips or chunks when the old ones die out, about once every hour.
The aromas in wood smoke vary from tree to tree. Mesquite and hickory woods produce a thick, heavy smoke that pairs well with robust foods such as beef and pork. Oak, maple, alder, and pecan give off a medium-bodied smoke that goes well with pork, poultry, game, and fish. Fruit woods such as apple and cherry emit a lighter, sweeter smoke that gently flavors more delicate foods like poultry, shellfish, and vegetables. The flavor differences are subtle, so use whatever wood is available in your area. We like to use a light hand when grilling with smoke, because a heavy smoke flavor can easily overpower the flavor of the grilled food itself.
05. Barbecuing
Smoking on a grill begins to tread into the domain of barbecue, another culinary arena with its own techniques and traditions. As we mentioned earlier, grilling uses high, direct heat and barbecuing uses low, indirect heat. But the hallmarks of barbecue are billows of thick wood smoke and long cooking times—up to 24 hours in some cases. Here’s a quick look at barbecuing, which is mostly outside the scope of this grilling book.
Traditionally, barbecued foods are cooked in a pit or smoker with a separate (offset) firebox. With the heat in one chamber and the food in another, the food cooks by the relatively cool heat of smoke generated by the wood rather than by the radiant heat of burning coals. In the cooking chamber, the temperature remains very low (200° to 225°F) throughout the entire cooking time. This low temperature allows foods to cook very slowly without burning, which is a key factor in dissolving the tough connective tissue that surrounds the muscle fibers in relatively tough meats such as brisket and ribs. It simply takes time for these connective tissues to gradually dissolve and add moisture to the meat. If brisket, for instance, were cooked quickly over high heat, it would be leathery and unpalatable. But when barbecued low and slow, it becomes meltingly tender and succulent. Cooking slowly by the indirect heat of smoldering wood also infuses the meat with deep, smoky aromas.
06. Cooking in the Coals
Here’s a nifty grilling technique. Dispense with your grill grate altogether and put the food directly on the hot coals. Steaks and chops cooked this way quickly develop a thick crust and amazing flavor due to the deep browning created by the intense heat right on the surface of the burning embers. This method also works well for dense foods