Take a tip from the experts: use BBQ wood chips to spice up your grilling. If you are an avid griller then you already know the reason for using barbecue wood chips. However, lots of people don’t have a clue why this product is so popular.

Wood chips are used in your grill in addition to charcoal or gas. If you are not using a wood fire to cook your food, then the only way you are going to get a true smoke flavor is by adding wood to your fire.

BBQ wood chips take your grilling to a whole new level. Whether you use a charcoal, gas or electric grill, wood chips will give you authentic barbecue flavor. There are special smoker boxes that can be placed in your gas and charcoal grills to add that special wood smoke flavor. Read the instructions for your particular grill before you try doing this.

When you use wood chips, take care to keep them burning quite slowly. The resulting heavy smoke will spoil your food with an acrid taste. By soaking wood chips in water for about 15 minutes you can slow down the combustion and lengthen the time in which the smoke is created. Before you use them, though, let the wood chips “drip dry” for a few minutes before you add them to your fire. You want the wood moist, not dripping wet.

When using a small smoker in your grill you don’t necessarily have to soak your BBQ wood chips first. Although soaked wood chips burn longer, if you are cooking a steak you might not need them to burn for that long.

Wood smoking chips or BBQ wood chips are available in a wide variety of flavors. They go from mesquite and hickory all the way to cabernet. The stores that sell BBQ wood chips will have flavor guides to help you wade your way through the new age of wood chips.

In general, if your meat is lighter, you’ll need a milder wood chip flavor. But it also doesn’t hurt to experiment and try mesquite with chicken, just begin with fewer wood chips then you would normally use.

With its more delicate aroma, alder wood chips best accompany lighter meats like fish and poultry. The flavorful fruitwoods go best with veal, poultry and pork. Fruit woods include apple and cherry.

Maple and hickory BBQ wood chips have a strong flavor and are best used with beef, pork and poultry. Beef, duck and lamb go well with the strong mesquite wood chips, and oak, another strong flavor, is good with beef and ham.

But remember that barbecuing is all about the meat. If you don’t have a good piece of meat, there is no wood chip in existence that will make your meat taste any better. Make sure you have a good cut that is fresh and well prepared.

Don’t settle for just a plain old grilled steak or bland chicken breast cooked on bare coals – cook like a pro and enjoy the vibrant aromas and flavors that come from cooking with BBQ wood chips.