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. But many people have no idea what the big deal is about this product.

Wood chips are very small pieces of wood that are added to your BBQ to create smoke. 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.

Using BBQ wood chips can send your grilling into the stratosphere. Whether you use a charcoal, gas or electric grill, wood chips will give you authentic barbecue flavor. You can also buy a special smoker box to place in your gas or charcoal grill so that you can get that “wood smoke” flavor. Make sure you read the instructions for your grill before trying 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. Make sure you let the wood drip dry for a few minutes before you add it to the fire. Ideally, your wood chips will be damp but not saturated.

If you’re using a smoker in your grill, it’s probably not necessary to soak the wood chips before you use them. Although soaked wood chips burn longer, if you are cooking a steak you might not need them to burn for that long.

You can get BBQ wood chips in a variety of flavors. You can try cabernet, hickory or mesquite. 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, the lighter the meat, the milder the wood chip you need to use. You can also try “heavier” flavors with lighter meats, though, such as using mesquite with chicken, but start with fewer wood chips.

With its more delicate aroma, alder wood chips best accompany lighter meats like fish and poultry. Fruit wood chips are also mild and are best used with poultry, veal 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.

When you barbecue, your first focus should be 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 your meat or chicken is fresh and from a reputable butcher.

So the next time you decide to grill a great piece of meat consider using some of these BBQ wood chips and savor the great flavor and aroma coming off your grill.