Gas Grill and wood chips

[AdamC28]

I have a Weber Spirit which I love and it’s great for those quick outdoor cooks after work but I do miss having a proper BBQ.

I know the answer is probably just to buy myself a Weber Kettle and cook with charcoal but was wondering if anyone has any experience of using wood chips to create smoke in a gas grill as an option to add a little more flavour & sense of occasion?

[prand]

AdamC28 said:

I have a Weber Spirit which I love and it’s great for those quick outdoor cooks after work but I do miss having a proper BBQ.

I know the answer is probably just to buy myself a Weber Kettle and cook with charcoal but was wondering if anyone has any experience of using wood chips to create smoke in a gas grill as an option to add a little more flavour & sense of occasion?

I got rid of my gas grill after I found that doing multiple "quick cookouts" meant I never really burnt off the grease from the food that fell into the grill internals, which meant I got a big unpleasant rancid black cloud of smoke whenever I started it up, charcoal seems to self clean and just needs a bit of a rubdown before cooking..

So assuming grill technology is much better nowadays, and you're happy not to junk it all in and go back to charcoal I'd suggest doing what you can do on charcoal as well - get some oak, hickory, beech, apple or cherry (or similar) chippings, soak them well for an hour or so before you cook, drain, then wrap them a couple of times in a kitchen foil pouch that you stab a few times with a skewer to resemble a giant silver teabag. Then put this on top of the burners, under the grill, and this should generate the smoke you are after. Depending on what you are cooking , try to keep the lid on to make sure the smoke gets into the food. The dampness of the chippings should stop the chippings completely catching fire, adn the foil should keep it all together.

Depending on your BBQ, it may already have a spot under the grill and a gadget specifically for smoking wood, so look into it.

You could try by soaking 2 inch wide wood chunks of wood and put them directly on the burners too, this will generate smoke too. the main point is to not let the wood catch fire so keep an eye on it!

[AdamC28]

Thanks for the thorough reply, think I will some up and have a go.

[MattyD803]

i've been playing aorund recently on my Weber Spirit using different flavoured wood chips and a little smoker box and am having mixed results. I find when they have been soaked, they simply don't char and smoke quick enough when doing say a normal little quick fire round of steak / burgers / sausages etc....and when dry, they burn and smoke a little too much, and actually leave the whole garden stinking for some time after! Certainly an element of taste improvement when I did some ribs recently though.....i'll be watching this thread with interest!

[UTH]

Subscribed to the thread. Will share my frustrating experience with trying to achieve exactly what the OP is referring to, when I’m back at my laptop

[AdamC28]

UTH said:

Subscribed to the thread. Will share my frustrating experience with trying to achieve exactly what the OP is referring to, when I’m back at my laptop

Will wait for your reply but you haven’t filled me with confidence!

[imck]

I have a 3 Burner Spirit and a Smoker Box.
Have only used it a few times sat on the Flavouriser Bars.
Made a very tasty whole smoked Chicken.

I bought a cheap box from Netto that doesn't fit very well.
First attempt the chips caught fire. Took a bit of trial and error to get decent smoke.

Have seen others on YouTube using Foil Trays on the Flavouriser Bars or making Bags from Tin Foil and placing on the Cooking Grid. You could have try without the £30 Weber Box.

Use the BBQ quite a lot but usually for fairly quick cook Meat, Fish and Veg.

[UTH]

AdamC28 said:

UTH said:

Subscribed to the thread. Will share my frustrating experience with trying to achieve exactly what the OP is referring to, when I’m back at my laptop

Will wait for your reply but you haven’t filled me with confidence!

Not exactly a thrilling story, but I've got a Weber gas grill and wanted to start doing my own ribs, which involved smoking them for the first hour or so, so I bought one of these:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/East-buy-Grilling-Tube-St...

Ribs were to be cooked on indirect heat over several hours, with the smoke tube in from the beginning. In short, pretty much every time, the chips quickly just set on fire, meaning the temperature in the BBQ shot up towards 200 , when I needed it around 110. I tried soaking the chips over night, I tried wrapping the tube in tin foil to reduce the air flow (this did help, but not perfect) I tried moving the tube closer to the heat, further from the heat......but on the whole it was just a matter of time before there was way too much smoke and there were big flames inside and I'd have to get it out with tongs and dump it under the tap to put it out.

So, if anyone has any tips as to how to get this right, that would be great. The one or two times I've got it right, the addition of smoke on the ribs was awesome, but it's annoying having to keep a constant eye on things in case it goes up in flames.

[Big E 118]

I've got one of these for my Weber https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00D5TNRK8/ref=cm_sw_e...

I soak half the chips, put in half dry. It takes a while to heat the box as it's cast iron so you'll need to get it nice and warm and smokey before you start any quick cooks but it works fairly well.

I have a smoker as well and it's never going to compare to a proper smoker but for convenience when you want to do a few sausages or burgers on the Weber it does add a bit of smokey aroma to the food.

[UTH]

Big E 118 said:

I've got one of these for my Weber https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00D5TNRK8/ref=cm_sw_e...

I soak half the chips, put in half dry. It takes a while to heat the box as it's cast iron so you'll need to get it nice and warm and smokey before you start any quick cooks but it works fairly well.

I have a smoker as well and it's never going to compare to a proper smoker but for convenience when you want to do a few sausages or burgers on the Weber it does add a bit of smokey aroma to the food.

Where exactly do you put that box in terms of proximity to the heat/burners? Do you ever have issues with it all setting on fire?

[Big E 118]

UTH said:

Where exactly do you put that box in terms of proximity to the heat/burners? Do you ever have issues with it all setting on fire?

I put it on the tenderiser bars in a back corner. I found putting dry chips only they would catch, all soaked and they didn't give off enough smoke so using a handful of soaked and a handful of dry seems to get the best results.

[MattyD803]

Big E 118 said:

I put it on the tenderiser bars in a back corner. I found putting dry chips only they would catch, all soaked and they didn't give off enough smoke so using a handful of soaked and a handful of dry seems to get the best results.

I'll also give this a go, cheers

[paralla]

UTH said:

Not exactly a thrilling story, but I've got a Weber gas grill and wanted to start doing my own ribs, which involved smoking them for the first hour or so, so I bought one of these:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/East-buy-Grilling-Tube-St...

Ribs were to be cooked on indirect heat over several hours, with the smoke tube in from the beginning. In short, pretty much every time, the chips quickly just set on fire, meaning the temperature in the BBQ shot up towards 200 , when I needed it around 110. I tried soaking the chips over night, I tried wrapping the tube in tin foil to reduce the air flow (this did help, but not perfect) I tried moving the tube closer to the heat, further from the heat......but on the whole it was just a matter of time before there was way too much smoke and there were big flames inside and I'd have to get it out with tongs and dump it under the tap to put it out.

So, if anyone has any tips as to how to get this right, that would be great. The one or two times I've got it right, the addition of smoke on the ribs was awesome, but it's annoying having to keep a constant eye on things in case it goes up in flames.

That looks like it has way too much air flow around the wood chips. I have one of these which works well, it only has holes in the top so I guess there's much less air flow and therefore less likelihood of the wood catching fire.

https://www.bullbbq.co.uk/en/our-products/webshop/...

[UTH]

paralla said:

That looks like it has way too much air flow around the wood chips. I have one of these which works well, it only has holes in the top so I guess there's much less air flow and therefore less likelihood of the wood catching fire.

https://www.bullbbq.co.uk/en/our-products/webshop/...

Yeah it must be the airflow. The tinfoil wrapped around it did help, but not perfect

I like the look of that one you've linked, ordered one for this weekend, so fingers crossed it might be the solution.

[AdamC28]

Thank you all for the recommendations.
I couldn’t find the bullbbq one linked above to purchase so went with the “Charcoal Companion CC4066 Long Stainless Gas Grill V-Shape Smoker Box” from Amazon which looks very similar.

Added bags of Whiskey and Hickory Weber chips to the order as well as they’re on offer for just over a fiver.

[prand]

AdamC28 said:

Thank you all for the recommendations.
I couldn’t find the bullbbq one linked above to purchase so went with the “Charcoal Companion CC4066 Long Stainless Gas Grill V-Shape Smoker Box” from Amazon which looks very similar.

Added bags of Whiskey and Hickory Weber chips to the order as well as they’re on offer for just over a fiver.

Sounds perfect. Best of luck with them!

[MattyD803]

For what it's worth, I went down the route of 50% of soaked chips and 50% dry in my smoker box (as recommended above) and it worked much better. I was grilling for around 1.5hrs, and had smoke pretty much throughout....although it probably took a good 20 mins initially to get hot enough to smoke. (That was Weber Chips in a "mountain griller" type flat box box).

A slightly better flavour on the meat, but also a lovely (proper bbq) aroma in the air!

[UTH]

UTH said:

paralla said:

That looks like it has way too much air flow around the wood chips. I have one of these which works well, it only has holes in the top so I guess there's much less air flow and therefore less likelihood of the wood catching fire.

https://www.bullbbq.co.uk/en/our-products/webshop/...

Yeah it must be the airflow. The tinfoil wrapped around it did help, but not perfect

I like the look of that one you've linked, ordered one for this weekend, so fingers crossed it might be the solution.

This has turned up, I'll be putting it to the test later in the week.

[paralla]

UTH said:

This has turned up, I'll be putting it to the test later in the week.

Good luck, fantastic BBQ weather this week.

[UTH]

First ribs of the year, and using the new smoke box. Fingers crossed this is the answer I've been looking for. Chips soaked for ages in water as well.