A Grill or a Smoker? Or Both?
A Grill or a Smoker? Or Both?
Many families love to grill their food outdoors. This is a fun and easy way to prepare food for your family, especially on a lovely spring or summer evening. Using your oven heats up the whole house, so hey--get outside and have some fun!
Grilling vs. Smoking
Grilling and smoking are two very different cooking techniques. Grills use direct heat from coals placed close to the food being cooked. Smokers use indirect heat, often vented onto the cooking chamber from a wood or charcoal fire. Grills cook over a bed of coals and the temperature can reach as high as 400 degrees. Indirect heat from the smoker can range from 250 to 300 degrees and is a much slower cooking process. This allows more of the smoke flavor to penetrate the food.
Grilling your food requires you to pay more attention to your food as it cooks, turning it often. Smokers take a very long time to cook your meat so in many cases you don’t even need to turn the meat at all during the process.
If you want to preserve your meat, smoking it is the way to go. This is an ancient method of preserving food that has been practiced throughout history. Archaeologists have found proof that the earliest Medieval Europeans, as well as some primitive South American and Asian cultures, smoked meat as well as substantial amounts of fish and poultry. Smoking works effectively as a preservative for raw meat because smoke contains chemical compounds that prevent the growth of bacteria.
Pretty much any kind of meat can be prepared using a smoker:
- Ribs
- Chicken
- Brisket
- Turkey
- Pork shoulder
- Salmon
Secrets to Using Your Smoker
The real secret to using a smoker is making sure you give yourself plenty of time to prepare your meat. Maintaining a consistent, steady temperature for a lengthy period of time is the key to smoking meat.
Adding soaked wood or wood chips to your smoker will add very nice flavor to your smoked meat. Be sure to use natural wood, you don’t want wood with any type of chemicals or sap. Wood from fruit trees or nut trees are typically ideal for use in a smoker.
- Apple wood
- Peach wood
- Cherry wood
- Hickory wood
- Pecan wood
- Red oak wood
Get creative and make your own rubs and homemade sauces. The whole family can pitch in on this!
Smokers can range in price from around $50 at your local hardware store for a small upright smoker and can go upwards of several thousand for professional grade smokers.
Cooking food outdoors is so much fun and can really make for a great meal with friends and family. Either way you go, grill or smoker, your guests will be pleased.
