How to use Smoking Wood Chunks and Smoking Wood Chips

Are you getting into the world of smoking, and looking to add wonderful smokey notes to your food? You're in the right place - we're going to show you how to use smoking wood chunks and smoking wood chips.

This video blog tells you all about smoking wood chunks and smoking wood chips, whether to choose smoking chunks or smoking chips, how to use wood chunks and wood chips, and some common mistakes to avoid.

It's only a two minute video, and we've even added subtitles to it, but if you prefer reading, check out the written answers below.

Smoking chips are for adding short, subtle smoke - use them while grilling with the lid off, or for doing very short lidded cooks such as chicken or fish.

Smoking chunks burn much longer, so they're brilliant for medium length and longer cooks - anything from roasting a joint of meat to long, low 'n' slow cooks such as pulled pork or brisket.

Smoking chips should be sprinkled on hot charcoal just before cooking - they don't burn for very long so you want to maximise your time smoking, and they're so dry they don't really create dirty smoke, so crack on straight away. This method can give you 5-15 minutes of smoke.

You can add a single smoking chunk to hot charcoal in the same way for slightly longer smoke, a single wood chunk should give you smoke for 30-40 minutes. Alternatively, use the snake method to give yourself several hours of smoke without lifting the lid of your BBQ.

You can find our video for how to use the snake method at the blog below:

For me, this is an EMPHATIC NO! We work very hard to get your smoking wood very dry so that it burns cleanly and efficiently producing lovely light smoke.

If you soak your smoking wood it will smoulder and steam, so while it might last longer it won't produce the sort of smoke you're looking for.

If you found this video on how to light your charcoal BBQ useful, we'd really appreciate it if you shared it with your fellow charcoal BBQ enthusiasts!