Showerthought: why do people bother with wood chips for smoking?

I drove 45 minutes to a specialty store last week and caught a guy buying a bag of hickory chips for $12. He's putting them on a gas grill. That's just wasting money. Chips burn up in 20 minutes and give off almost no real smoke flavor. I told him to get chunks or a tube smoker instead. He looked at me like I was crazy. Any of you actually get decent results from chips or am I right that they're a scam?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_seth7h ago

Did you try soaking the chips first? I used to mess with wood chips until I started wrapping them in foil with a few holes poked through, and it actually gave me decent smoke for about 45 minutes on my Weber kettle.

fiona_scott447h ago

45 minutes of smoke on a kettle seems like overkill for most cooks I do, but if you're happy with it then fair enough.