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Now here’s a controversial topic! When you read a lot of the cookbooks or articles in papers, they always tell you to soak your smoking wood chips or chunks before placing them on the fire. If you ask on many online forums, everyone chimes in about how the chunks will just give off steam until the water is gone and then they will start to smoke so you are only delaying the smoke production. It turns out that the real answer is “it depends.”

Wood is composed of three primary components: cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. These three materials burn at temperatures ranging from 390°F to 750°F. When they burn at low temperatures, they are transformed into various molecules which produce the smoke flavor we all know and love. For example, cellulose and hemicellulose break down into molecules that produce sweet, fruity, flowery, and bread-like aromas. And lignin breaks down into volatile molecules which produce the aromas of vanilla and cloves, as well as other spicy, sweet, and pungent aromas.

Production of these desired aromas which translate into the pleasant smokey flavor we seek takes place at low smoldering temperatures between 570°F and 750°F. However, if they burn at higher temperatures, the molecules which produce these wonderful flavors are themselves broken down into smaller molecules that are either flavorless or harsh. Charcoal, being almost pure carbon, burns at about 1800°F. Therefore if you are going to place your smoking wood directly on your fire, you should soak the smoking wood to cool the charcoal and reduce the combustion temperature. On the other hand, if your smoking wood are wrapped in foil or in a smoking box, thus protected from the direct heat of the burning charcoal, soaking isn’t necessary.

One curious side note involves mesquite. Most people will recommend against using mesquite as a smoking wood except for use with meats like beef which can take strong flavors. Mesquite is about 64% lignin (hickory is only 16% lignin) and the more lignin in the wood the hotter it burns. And of course as we have just explained, the hotter the combustion the more that the beneficial flavor-producing molecules are broken down in harsh-tasting molecules.