when you smoke flavored food too much and how to correct!
I’m going to start this by stating smoke is a lot like salt. You can add more of it but if you add too much to smoke flavored food, it’s hard to correct. All is not lost though. I’m going to provide a tip that could save a smoke flavored food item that has been over smoked.
It’s All in the Ingredients
You’ve made the mistake of either using too much wood material to smoke or you smoked for too long. Either way, the outcome appears to be a disaster. Take a breath and a step back and assess the ingredients you used.
Often, you can correct the smoke level by adding an ingredient that was not included in the recipe. For instance, if your smoke flavored food involved a vegetable for a soup, find an ingredient in the soup recipe that has not been used. This may be cream, sugar or vinegar. Additionally, by adding the ingredient that was smoked in a non-smoked fashion, you can reduce the smoke flavor intensity. If you infused too much smoke in the broccoli for your broccoli cream soup, think about steaming some additional raw broccoli and adding with the smoked base. That will diffuse the smokiness.
SMOKE IS A GAS- Prime Factor for Smoke Flavored Food Items
Smoke is a vapor or gas. That means it is readily absorbed by the food product especially if moisture is present. This is one of the reasons why a water pan is used in a smoker.
Certain foods are more apt to be over smoked. Items like vegetables, fruits, dough item like breads, pies and tarts, and dairy items like egg-based recipes. Wood choice, amount of wood and length of the smoking process all play a part in how much essence comes from the wood.
Remember, smoke flavored food like a cut of meat can taste bitter with too much smoke vapor. This results from using wood that is too wet or using a wood that is not ideal for food.
But even a bitter smoked meat item can be saved by blending the meat with a sauce or glaze, especially one that contains a balance of sweet and heat.
In the end, you may find a smoke flavored food destined for the trash becomes a star dish when you know how to balance the smokiness with another flavor.
Our traceability of forest fresh products to your smoke generator
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Our view of wood – it is not simply what produces vapor or being a smoke generator. It is THE ingredient that provides for colour, aroma, flavour and even texture to food.
Just like the other ingredients used in your operation, you need peace of mind knowing that if questions arise, you can produce the documentation to show where the wood came from and how it was handled.
Tracing from Mill to You- A Key Factor for Wood to Be a Smoke Generator
First, when you partner with SmokinLicious®, you’ll be using fresh forest hardwoods from Western New York and Northwestern Pennsylvania. Second, all our hardwoods arrive at our facility de-barked. Third, we only use pure heartwood for the log. This is considered the purest part of the tree and one that is resistant to decay, pests, and fungi.
We trace each wood piece we manufacture. We have information on:
the harvest date
what mill processed the raw wood
our heat treatment date and data
ship date
That is forest to oven.
Why is Traceability Important?
Without it, your operation could be interrupted.
Any time your company’s standards are reviewed, we have the data on the wood. That means, it’s at your fingertips. Plus, our commitment to a higher heat treatment level (75°C for a minimum of 75 minutes) ensures Thermal Death Time. Potentially dangerous organisms like fungi spore, mold spores and listeria can’t survive with our heat level!
There is no question, North Americans love maple trees! Although we don’t have as many as the continent of Asia, we sure have a good share with some 12 varieties available. Plus, the Sugar Maple tree is the official tree of New York State!
Maple is a very popular hardwood for wood-fired cooking, especially hot smoking. We are blessed at SmokinLicious® to have in our harvest Sweet Sugar Maple hardwood. This extremely versatile wood can be used to smoke everything from eggs to brisket. It is a very even tempered wood so it works with spicy rubs as well as fruity sauces.
Pears, pears, everywhere! Why not try your hand with this easy method for smoked pears Depending on where you’re located, you’ll have at least a few varieties of pears to select from. Rather than just enjoy these as a raw fruit, try something truly unique that will give them a kiss of wood flavoring?
Stovetop smoking is so easy and a great way to still enjoy wood-fired flavorings during the winter months, when you may not want to venture out to the grill or smoker. I’ll be highlighting Bosc pears in today’s technique. To do this technique you will need:
Fresh pears – 4 will likely fill the smoker pan one time
A Chef’s knife, paring knife, and cutting board
A cooling rack
Pears cut in half
PREPARING THE SMOKED PEARS
When I purchased my Bosc pears, I made sure that they were firm to the touch so that I would have some longevity to their use in recipes for a while. Carefully, wash each pear and then pat dry with a paper towel. I then slice each pear in half, removing the stem tip. This will give me a flat surface to smoke and cook my pears since I am using a stovetop grill pan with my process. That will allow me to form some great grill marks on the pears while they cook. The benefit to using halves of pear is I can feature larger pear cuts in a salad or dessert, highlighting the golden smoked color.
Once the pears are halved and the stems removed, I will core out the seeds and hard seed membrane with a small paring knife. Once that step is complete, I start the heat under my stovetop smoking pan.
Over the past several months, you have learned how your own hands can play host to transmitting the virus known as COVID-19. Once transmitted, the virus can potentially live on surfaces for up to several days.
Of course, there are factors that determine how attracted the virus is to the surface. Porous surfaces like those of cardboard and wood are not very attractive to the virus. It prefers smooth surfaces.
But there is still so much we do not know. SmokinLicious® continues to prioritize limiting human contact with our product manufacture and packaging. Our position is, we do not know enough to stop being diligent in our efforts.
Time to revisit our cartoon friends! Tom and Bert recently discussed the SmokinLicious® air collection process for wood chips.
Why Air Collected Packaging is Better!
Tom asks a great question, as often, we do not think about the wood we cook with. How is it bulk stored, what has it been exposed to, how much dust is in the product? Remember, dust slows combustion and can cause equipment failures. This is the main reason why SmokinLicious® designed a process for screening our wood chips to eliminate as much dust as possible. That is just step #2 in the process after producing the chips from larger pieces of wood.
Collage of Smoked Chestnuts go on a Stovetop Smoker
SMOKED CHESTNUTS ON A STOVETOP SMOKER!
Depending on where your located, chestnuts may only be available for a short period each year, usually around the holidays. Mostly pan roasted in the oven, why not do something unique with this prized fruit and smoke them! In addition to the chestnuts, you’ll need a stovetop smoker, purchased or you can make your own with tools likely in your kitchen. You can see our writing on the “The Kitchen Find” which will guide you on what is needed.
about 2 hours of time. Be sure you also have a hood vent where you will be using the stovetop smoker in order to maintain a smoke-free kitchen.
You will find chestnuts available prepackaged or in bulk when in season. Although the packaged product will include a directive to cut an X in the flat surface of each nut, I grew up in a household where we always cut off the stem side. This is the small, dark cap side to the chestnut. The chestnut has a cap and a pointed end giving it a bloated teardrop look. I have found that when smoking, I get better control of the smoke infusion with a fresh cut to one end. Keep in mind, not all the chestnuts purchased will likely be viable as often mold will take hold of some of the chestnuts which you won’t see until you cut into them. As the chestnuts age, they can develop a fuzzy mold on the outside which will tell you not to waste your time cutting that one open! Simply discard!
Generally, chestnuts have a flat side and a rounded side.
To prepare them:
lay the chestnut on the cutting board with the flat side down. Place your knife blade over the small dark cap, and slice off in one motion. This will reveal the chestnut meat inside which will have a yellow-white hue. Once the cap is off, you’ll be able to tell if any mold has set in as it will have a marked gray/black appearance. If any mold is noted, discard the chestnut as it won’t cook tender. If the majority is free of mold, go ahead and keep it for the smoking/cooking process.
To do stovetop smoking, there are 4 parts needed:
a pan to hold the heat and wood chips
a drip pan to prevent rendered fat and juices from entering the wood. Generally, you only need the drip pan when you actually have a food item that will produce juices or fat drippings.
a grill pan
a lid.
Note: Smoked chestnuts will not produce any drippings though they do have a percentage of water that will be released as steam into the lid of the pan. Just be sure when you open the lid that you keep any collected water from dripping back into the cooking grate.
It is one of our top questions. Wood storage. Where to store wood, how to store wood, temperature ideal for storing wood, shelf life of stored wood. If you are an avid follower of our readings, you are likely familiar with our two cartoon characters, Tom and Bert. Thru these characters, SmokinLicious® has been able to guide millions of home grilling and smoking enthusiasts on techniques and tips to make every wood-fired cooking event a success.
Thinking about using cedar wood for cooking? 6 reasons to don’t!
6 REASONS TO AVOID CEDAR WOOD FOR COOKING
You love different techniques for cooking and absorb new information like a sponge. In particularly, you love outdoor methods of cooking. One of your favorites is plank cooking on cedar wood. Every time you read a recipe, they all call for use of a cedar plank or other methods to use cedar wood for cooking.
But is cedar really the best choice? More so, is cedar wood for cooking a safe choice?
#1 Softwood Classification Presents a Concern for Using Cedar Wood for Cooking
Cedar wood is not a hardwood. It is a softwood that is from the gymnosperm trees meaning, it is a conifer or cone producing tree. As a rule, softwoods should not be used for cooking as they contain a lot of air and sap which equates to a fast burn and unpleasant flavors. In fact, there are many softwoods that can be toxic if cooked over.
#2 Poor Fire Resistance
During plank cooking, you are using the wood as a vessel to infuse flavor to whatever food is placed on top of the plank. Here’s the concern with cedar – because it is a lower density wood (23 lb./ft³), it has very poor fire resistance. That means, it reaches full combustion much faster than hardwood and will burn as a result. Certainly, that’s not what you’re looking for when you plank cook.
#3 Poreless
Unlike hardwood which contain pores in the cell walls, softwoods like cedar are poreless. They use cell components called tracheids to transport water and nutrients. In addition, the organic compound lignin found in the cell walls, is much lower than in traditional hardwoods used for cooking. Why is this an issue? Lignin is what gives wood fired cooking the distinct flavor and aroma to foods. In using cedar wood for cooking, the average lignin composition is 20%±4 compared to common hardwoods used for wood-fired cooking which average 28%±3.
#4 Plicatic Acid
Cedar contains chemical properties (specifically plicatic acid) that are shown to be a good absorber of odors and moisture. This is one of the key reasons why cedar is a preferred softwood for pest control to keep fleas, ants, mites, moths, and mosquitoes away. When exposed to plicatic acid for lengthy periods of time, a condition known as “cedar asthma” can develop.
Additionally, a regular exposure to the cedar oil found in the wood can result in contact dermatitis or skin irritation, rhinitis, and conjunctivitis.
#5 Animal Toxicity
There are many studies available on how the use of cedar wood chips and shavings have affected animals continually exposed to these products. Most studies show a correlation with liver dysfunction in animals such as rabbits, guinea pigs, and hamsters. In fact, smaller animals, like guinea pigs and hamsters, have a higher incidence of death which may be attributed to plicatic acid exposure. The phenols and aromatic hydrocarbons also have been shown to cause respiratory problems in animals like those listed above.
#6 Not All Cedar Is The Same
Cedar is part of the pine family of trees with native origin in North Africa and Asia. There are no native cedar trees to North America. The red cedar common in the Eastern USA is part of the Juniper family and can be highly toxic if taken internally. Under no circumstances should you ever cook with red cedar from the Eastern states of the USA.
USA cedar trees are referred to as false cedars since there are no native varieties. There are commonly 5 varieties of the false cedars available: Western Red Cedar (common to Southern Alaska, Northern California, and the Rockies), Northern White Cedar (Southeastern Canada, Northeastern quarter of the USA, south into Tennessee, and west into Iowa), Eastern Red (Aromatic) Cedar (Eastern USA), Yellow Cedar (Pacific Northwest from Alaska to British Columbia into Oregon), Spanish Cedar (although Native to South and Central America, it was planted in Florida). Every false cedar has some known health risks with the most common being respiratory due to toxicity of its pollen, oil, or other chemical compound.
Now you’re asking..
“So if there are all these documented health risks, how and why have cedar plank cooking and other methods of cedar wood cooking gain so much popularity?” I suppose the easiest answer is that cedar was used by the earliest settlers in the Pacific Northwest as a means of preserving, storing and cooking the seasonal fish. Think about the limitations of the day: they would be using resources that are available without thought to the items we ponder today like health, future risk, etc. This concept was examined from a different perspective many years later with the desire for flavor, appearance, and functionality.
We often make the mistake of jumping into something full throttle before asking some of the key questions to keep our bodies safe and healthy. Remember, there’s lots of documentation out there stating why you should not cook with softwood yet when it comes to cedar wood cooking, specifically, cedar plank cooking, we don’t seem to carry that issue forward. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why.
We love providing information to our readers and subscribers that is not in the open and letting you weigh the information for your own verdict. All types of questions are welcome and we encourage you to follow and subscribe to our social channels so you don’t miss anything. We look forward to providing you with tips, techniques, recipes, and the science for all things wood-fired cooked.
We love having the opportunity to work with chefs throughout the world in determining what they desire in a wood-fired flavor for various menu items.
As you can imagine, we get the opportunity to work with a variety of equipment lines that use wood for flavor and coloring. One of our favorite commercial equipment lines is produced by Alto-Shaam® who specialize in food service and retail markets by offering cooking, holding, display, and chill equipment lines.
Part of the Alto-Shaam®cooking offerings is Alto-Shaam® Combitherm® Combi Oven which not only offers convection cooking but smoke infusion as well. This highly efficient oven works with hardwood chips to bring the aroma and taste of wood infusion to all types of meat, poultry, fish, fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices. In fact, when SmokinLicious® began development of our microchip line, we targeted Alto-Shaam®Combitherm® oven for ideal sizing production to meet the needs of the commercial kitchen. In the end, we found that our smaller Minuto® Wood Chip line offered even greater flavor than traditionally-sized wood chips with little ash residue when used with the Combitherm®.
Chefs who use the Alto-Shaam® Combitherm® simply love the ease of adding our dust free product to the equipment, dialing in the smoke infusion level they desire, and letting the oven do its magic. The best part is they don’t have to worry about an unclean wood source going into their expensive equipment and causing equipment failure or producing off color and taste to the foods being cooked.
We know we can offer the best flavor in wood combustion by starting with the ideal hardwoods for cooking. The rest can be left to the cook’s imagination. We know the effort it takes for those in the food and beverage industry to commit to a specific piece of equipment. We know the expense involved. What we don’t understand is why the same time and research aren’t spent assessing the wood supply to be used in the oven? Why risk this investment to an unvetted supplier?
If you own an Alto-Shaam®Combitherm® Combi Oven or you are in the market for a new piece of equipment, join those who have already experienced the benefits of our exceptional Minuto® wood chip line and get ready to be blown away with the possibilities our products can bring to your kitchen!
Bon Bar B Que!
Dr. Smoke- It’s our opinion that we have best small diced wood chips for commercial smoking use.
There is misinformation out there that you may have been victim to. When cooking with hardwood, you may have been under the impression that only certain woods can be used with certain foods. For instance, hickory is reserved only for pork shoulder and brisket. Cherry for chicken, etc.
But that is hardly the truth.
Hardwood used for cooking must be viewed as another ingredient. As a key ingredient, it needs to be balanced with the food item and other ingredients used in preparation before grilling and smoking.
The intent today is to provide a guide on combinations of hardwood that work well for specific foods. Essentially, the ingredients of a rub, glaze, sauce or marinade will dictate what hardwoods will maximize all the flavors to become a finished masterpiece.
Combining Hardwoods- Hardwood Selection as a Compatible Ingredient
The goal when using hardwood is balance of the flavor outcome. You never want the hardwood to produce an ashy or burnt flavor. The essence of the wood should simply add to the beautiful flavor outcome for a memorable eating experience.
Here is SmokinLicious® rating on boldness of flavor for the hardwoods we offer:
When I design wood recipes for specific foods, I like to think about balancing out a medium or bolder flavor with one that is lighter. For lighter fare items like vegetables and fish, two wood combinations are generally used while longer cooked animal proteins can tolerate three hardwoods well.
In the chart that follows, reference is provided to various foods that benefit from exposure to the specified hardwoods. Use the color blocks indicated under each food group to guide you on combinations.Find the same color blocks in that group, and you have the balanced combination of hardwood. For instance, under Fruit, there are two red squares for an alder and cherry combination. Under the Fish column, there are 3 options: Alder and Maple represented by the pink square, Beech and Cherry represented by the orange square, and Ash and Maple represented by the gray square. These combinations are balanced by the essence they produce in the smoke vapor. Just use equal parts of each wood and remember, always start with a small quantity of hardwood as it does not take much to produce great flavor.
TIP: if you are using a spicy rub, default to combinations that includes mild to moderate flavor intensity. Using sweet ingredients, include a bolder hardwood flavor.
Our Guide for Combining Hardwoods
Experiment to find your favorite combinations of hardwood and soon you’ll have your own personal, detailed guide!
Do you have a favorite combination of hardwood? Leave us a comment and subscribe to get our latest tips, techniques, recipes and the science behind the fire and smoke, for all live fire cooking methods. That’s SmokinLicious!
As a billion-dollar business, selling grills is likely not going away any time soon. In fact, sales are gaining strength thanks to COVID-19 which forced many to find ways to keep cooking and eating interesting while forced to stay out of restaurants.
When asked, most people say they grill or barbeque for flavor. If that is the case, then why are some of the most common practices the ones causing the most variation in the taste of your grilled foods?
Here are the top 12 grilling mistakes you should avoid.
#1 Skipping Preheat of the Grill
It does not matter if you prefer to use a gas grill or a charcoal unit, you need to preheat the grill before adding food. Why? It is the only way to avoid having your foods stick to the grill grate. When you allow the metal to heat to a very hot level, the protein in meats cannot form a bond with the metal grate. Plan about 5 minutes preheat time for charcoal grills and 15 minutes for gas units.
#2 Cooking on an Unclean Grill
Yeah, I know. The grill is located outside so you think it does not need the same care and cleaning as your kitchen equipment indoors. Wrong! Leftover food particles, grease, smoke tar and creosote can build up on various parts of the grill and cause changes in food flavors as well as make the food stick. Plus, a grease trap that has never been emptied can ignite which will ruin your planned grill day! Get in the habit of scraping the grill grate after preheating and lightly scrub the cooled down grill including the lid area, with steel wool and water. The lid likes to hold on to carbonized grease which becomes flaky and falls off onto your foods if left in place.
This is one of the top questions heard when it comes to cooking with wood. Do you soak the wood chunks or chips before using on the grill or smoker?
I have a definite answer which is do not soak the wood before using in your equipment.
Let us examine why.
Wet or Dry Wood for Smoking?
Water Becomes Steam
Any time water is introduced to a preheated piece of equipment, whether it is an LP/gas grill, electric unit, or charcoal grill, it will affect the temperature of that equipment. For the LP/gas and electric units, this can be seen in the call for more gas or electric energy to keep the temperature at the preset level. For the charcoal unit, the water will reduce the heat of the coals and the fire will need to work harder to regain the energy to sustain the target temperature.
Wet Produces Off Flavor
There is an ideal moisture range for hardwood used for cooking, which includes grilling, smoking, direct coal and ember methods. You will hear the terms “seasoned” and “green”. “Green” wood refers to fresh cut wood which has not had an opportunity to dry out. The risks of using this type of wood is it will burn at variant rates, emit more sap, and has the potential to impart bitter and musty flavors. “Seasoned” woods refer to hardwoods that have dried out naturally. These will provide for more consistent temperature, provide cleaner flavors, and combust with less creosote build-up. Just be aware, you do not want firewood! If you Google seasoned wood, you will read that this is wood left to dry for 9-12 months or more. Do not leave your wood that long as it will not release any essence that produces the flavor.
Mold Potential
The wetter the wood the more potential there is for mold to develop. Mold needs 3 conditions: moist or damp locations to grow, a food source to survive, ideal temperatures usually from 32° to 120°F but love 70-90°F.
It is important that though you will use wood dry on any equipment (unless the equipment manufacturer specifically requests you soak the wood in water) that the wood not be completely dehydrated of all moisture. We recommend that you cook with wood that is approximately 20-25% moisture level. This is the main reason why at SmokinLicious®, we take the moisture reading on every order and provide that information to you. Here is a tip: if you see wood that is packaged in a plastic bag with no air holes, that is completely dry wood and will not provide any flavor or essence of the wood. It merely becomes a heat source
If you checked out our previous article on the Maple tree (“Oh, The Mighty Maple”) then you know that maple is a great addition to cooking with wood whether your hot smoking, grilling or ember cooking. Time to take a closer look at how this hardwood actually flavors the foods you cook.
Wood contains a variety of complex organic compounds with two that contribute to actual flavor – lignin and cellulose. In short, these compounds are sugars (cellulose is an indigestible carbohydrate). Here’s the kicker – wood, regardless of species, burns incompletely and unevenly. It is directly dependent on oxygen as well as the percentage of water it contains – what we call moisture content. The four stages of combustion actually occur simultaneously which is why you have great variation in temperature of the actual fire.
That being said, woods do have different percentages of lignin and cellulose and so we tend to lean towards certain hardwoods over others for specific cooking techniques. Tip: Not every hardwood is a good choice for cooking!
EMBER FIRED ASPARAGUS ON THE HIBACHI IS A PERFECT WAY TO ADD A GRILLING FLAVOR!
EMBER FIRED ASPARAGUS ON THE HIBACHI
Its Asparagus season and that means you should get the most out of this sensational vegetable while it’s fresh! Learn how easy it is to ember roast this thick skinned vegetable to bring out the fantastic flavor of this vegetable as a side dish, or used as an ingredient in other recipes like a refreshing dip, soup, or stuffing for meat or fish.
Fresh asparagus with thick stalks (or store bought is fine)
PREPARING TO EMBER COOK:
Clean the Hibachi or small charcoal grill unit of all previous ash, as well as any leftover wood and charcoal. Add the SmokinLicious®Grande Sapore® Wood Chips in the base of the Hibachi on the charcoal grates. If not using a Hibachi unit, then place the wood chips in the charcoal area of your small charcoal grill. I like to use Wild Cherry Grande Sapore® Chips to bring a balance to the asparagus’ flavor. Since I plan to use my roasted asparagus as an ingredient in other recipes, I’m using the chips in their natural state rather than soaking in a flavored liquid but feel free to soak in wine, alcohol, juice or other liquid of your choice.
LIGHTING THE FIRE
After loading the Hibachi or other unit with my Grande Sapore® Cherry Chips, I light the chips using a small kitchen size torch. I let the chips burn down until I have about 2-3 inches of hot embers to cook with. I need the layer long enough to accommodate the spears of asparagus and deep enough to ensure the embers encircle most of the spear. I keep plenty of extra Grande Sapore® Cherry chips on hand to ensure I get the depth and size of the ember bed throughout the cooking process. This includes maintaining a perimeter of unlit chips around the hot embers.
Without question, electric smokers are by far the easiest smokers to manage as they require no charcoal lighting, no constant checking of the fuel supply, and usually no messy ash pan. These are units that are designed to run on very little wood product, usually between 2-5 ounces because the actual ‘fuel’ is an electric coil. No gas, charcoal, or pellet.
