How often do you add wood chips in an electric smoker?
Posted at 10:13 am on 12/25/2019 by Ken Theobald
The frequency of adding wood chips to your smoke depends a lot on the species of wood that you are using. The more dense the wood, the longer and stronger that it will smoke. The reason that hickory, mesquite, and beechnut are so popular is because they are much more dense that say, cedar, maple, or peach.
It is difficult to tell when wood chips stop smoking because the best and most flavorable smoke is almost invisible. When you see white or grey smoke, that is simply the wood expelling water which has no flavor. Wood must burn to smoke.
Therefore, I always use the eyeball test. Your wood chips will go through phases: Pale color for fresh chips, light to dark brown for the first burn, and black for a used up wood chip. Add more chips between the dark brown and black stage.
Also, it seems to be common knowledge that wood
from the colder climates have more density than those grown in
year-round warm weather.
A quick study of wood moisture contents and weight https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/weigt-wood-d_821.html
shows that northern woods have a higher density (4%-28%) than their southern counterparts.
The
bottom line to all of this is simple: The greater the density of wood,
the more smoke, and the more smoke the more flavor! All of the wood
from Flame Grilling Products is native to Maine or New England.
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