Whether you’re still learning how to smoke meat at home or you have been smoking meat for a while now, some questions can be intimidating and baffling at the same time. This is due to various opinions, suggestions, answers, or information you can find online. However, a little research and experience can help sort many doubts.

A frequent question barbecue enthusiasts ask is regarding the refilling of wood in your smoker. How soon should it be changed, and is it bad to burn the wood down to ash before changing it? The answer usually lies in the various details of smoking meat. It also depends on taste preferences, the kind of meat you’re cooking, how long you’re going to be smoking it, and which smoker you are using for your smoking needs.

Understanding what the wood is used for

To know how often you should be refilling your smoker with wood, understanding the role wood plays in smoking is important. You should also know that wood does not heat the meat but only helps with the smoke. All the wood does is assist in smoldering, which results in smoke. So next time you’re enjoying a scrumptious piece of smoked meat, don’t forget to appreciate the wood.

Knowing what meat you will be cooking

Furthermore, being aware of what you will be cooking and smoking is also crucial. The amount of wood required and how often it needs to be refilled depends on this major factor. While smoking chicken, significantly less wood is required since the cuts of the meat are much smaller, and less wood is more than enough to smoke it well.

On the other hand, meat such as lamb requires less wood and becomes overly smoky quite quickly, so you have to be careful while smoking it. The time required to smoke lamb might be more than chicken, but the wood needed is still less since the process differs a lot.

How smokey do you prefer your meat?

What flavor you prefer and how smokey you like your meat is one of the factors to consider while deciding your wood requirements. If you enjoy a delicate flavor that doesn’t smell overly smoked, your wood can last for a longer period, and you won’t have to concentrate on refilling it very often.

On the other hand, if you’re someone who is all about tasting a strong smoky flavor in your meat, your cooking time will be longer, and the amount of wood you’ll use is going to be a lot more. More wood might still be required to achieve an intensely smokey flavor with a strong aroma. Taste preference is directly proportional to the amount of wood you use in your smoker.

Which smoker have you been using?

Similar to how your gas consumption depends on the car you’re using and its efficiency rate, smokers work similarly as well. Many well-known, high-quality electric smokers reduce your waste as much as possible and require relatively less wood. But some smaller electric smokers that might provide wonderful quality still need more wood due to their wood holding trays being much smaller.

A bigger electric smoker that provides a large tray to refill wood can go more than 7 to 8 hours without any major hiccups. This proves that the kind of smoker you own plays a major part in the consumption and refilling of wood.

Conclusion

In the end, it all comes down to how often you smoke your meat, how long you smoke it for, and the kind of meat you’re using. After summing up all these factors, we can conclude that refilling wood in a smoker differs from person to person and preference to preference.

The kind of smoker you use was also discussed and analyzed in further depth. The manual that comes along with these smokers can be a great help in understanding the frequency you’ll need to refill your wood tray.

Information is always the key which is why knowing that smoking longer than 6 hours can be deemed unnecessary. Previous experience and different experiments have proved that if you go on smoking your meat above the cap of 6 hours, it will lead to nothing. Adding more wood past this time is also not required.

Knowing your preferences can help you avoid any wastage and ensure that your meat is smoked correctly. If you’re interested in learning more tips and tricks regarding smoking, check our Bradley Smoker blog.

Check out a few more articles about wood:
Everything You Need to Know About Wood Costs for Food Smoking
Why You Shouldn’t Use Wet Wood Chunks In Your Food Smoker
Four Best Types of Wood to Smoke Food