Cooking Tip – Flavoring wood for your Vertical Smoker

Small wood chips work best inside the wood chip box. Use dry hardwoods such as hickory, pecan, apple, cherry, or mesquite. Most fruit or nut tree woods produce excellent smoke flavoring. Do not use resinous woods such as pine or plywood. These usually produce unpleasant flavoring. Let your taste be your guide – experiment with different types and quantities of wood chunks, chips, or sticks. You can even mix woods. To produce more smoke and to prevent fast burning, pre-soak the wood chips in a separate bowl of water for at least 20 minutes, or wrap the chips in perforated aluminum foil. Most smoke flavoring occurs within the first hour of cooking. Adding wood chips after the first hour is typically not necessary unless extra smoke flavoring is desired. ...