Want to smoke meats like a pitmaster?
Starting your master smoking journey can seem intimidating. The stakes are also a little high, considering the time and care it takes to produce well-smoked meat.
But when you understand the principles of meat smoking, that journey towards becoming a master smoker gets a lot easier.
Below, we’ll cover three tips for smoking meat like a pro!
1. Choose Your Wood Chips With Care
When you’re smoking meat, you must choose the right kindling. What you use to light your pit’s fire can make or break your meat’s flavor profile. So ditch the charcoal if you’re wondering how to become a pitmaster since it won’t offer nearly the same amount of flavor wood chips do.
Opt for woods such as hickory, pecan, and apple. Choosing the wrong kind of wood chip can have pretty serious consequences on your health. That’s why you must do your research and buy prepackaged wood chips every time you plan on smoking meats.
Never smoke with treated wood or wood from sap trees, such as pine. Even without danger, some other woods make terrible kindling because of their flavor. Such woods include mesquite, which offers an overwhelming and unpleasant aroma to your meats’ flavor profile.
Instead, opt for woods such as hickory, pecan, and apple. They offer a very pleasant, slightly sweet aroma that can positively transform your meats.
2. Use a Water Pan
The last thing you want as a BBQ pitmaster is dry meat. When you treasure the art of smoking, seeing all of it go to waste can leave you crestfallen. So when you start using your meat smoker, don’t forget to use a water pan!
If you’re worried that doing so will add too much moisture, don’t be. Doing so can add humidity and stabilize temperature, both of which are crucial for retaining your meats’ moisture. Just make sure to check on it throughout cooking to refill it when necessary.
Not using a water pan can otherwise dry your meats out. A water pan also provides an opportunity for more flavor, especially if you add apple cider vinegar or herbs to it.
3. Be Patient
It’s good to be excited about the result of the smoking process. But you also have to love the smoking process itself. That means cooking your meats slow and low, ensuring a thorough and even cook.
Otherwise, high heat can burn the exterior of your meats before it can cook the inside at all. There are no shortcuts to this principle, so make sure that you set aside time in your schedule to produce the best meats you can.
You’re On Your Way to Becoming a Pitmaster!
Once you get the hang of it, smoking meats is a very rewarding process. With freshly smoked, deliciously aromatic meals, you’ll have a skill that creates long-lasting memories!
This guide should have given a few great tips for smoking meat like a pitmaster. If it did, then check out the rest of our blog! We’ve got plenty of posts for culinary enthusiasts such as you.
