How to Add Applewood Smoked Flavor to Meat
Smoking can permeate meat with flavor without using a marinade. This technique can be helpful for especially large pieces of meat, like racks of ribs or whole chickens and turkeys. It is also fairly easy to experiment with smoking; you can use different rubs on the meat to enhance the smoky flavor or use different types of wood chips to change the flavor. Apple wood leaves a very mild smoky flavor on the meat. The wood imparts a slight sweetness, making it a good companion to mild meats and fish. It also leaves the meat golden brown. Does this Spark an idea?
Things You'll Need
- Meat
- Smoker
- Apple wood chips
- Sharp knife or hatchet
- Kindling (paper, cardboard or dryer lint)
- Bowl
- Liquid
Instructions
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Make sure your wood chips are seasoned and dry. If getting your wood from nature, choose thick, fallen branches that are dry to the touch. Peel back about 1/8 inch of bark to make sure the inner wood is not green; green wood will not burn or smoke well. Pre-seasoned wood chips are available commercially as well.
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Slice bits of apple wood about the size of a match. Make a small teepee of these pieces in the bottom of your smoker, placing a bit of kindling underneath. Dryer lint makes excellent kindling. Gather a handful from your dryer and squeeze it into a ball before placing under the teepee.
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Light the kindling with a match. Wait until the teepee has caught fire and add larger slivers of wood until you have a fire about as large as your fist. Add apple wood chips about the size of your palm. Let them catch fire and wait until they begin to smoke. Blow on them a little; they should glow red beneath the charred surface.
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Add four to eight large chips to your smoker, depending on the size of the meat to be smoked. Allow each piece of wood to smoke for a few minutes before adding your meat on top. This ensures the apple wood will stay lit and that it will produce enough smoke to fill your smoker when it is closed.
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Place your meat on a rack above the smoker. If desired, add a bowl of water, wine, or fruit juice to the smoker right next to the meat. This will create humidity in the smoker and prevent the meat from drying out. Apple juice or cider make good complements to apple wood.
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