Thanks for the freebie.
Funny story about soaking the chips: My youngest daughter just started working for a new chain restaurant. They haven’t opened the doors yet but have a bunch of people working until they can weed out the dead beats. Doing full prep, mock lunches/dinners, etc… They put a bunch of money and effort in getting this right.
Anyway, one of her duties includes making the ribs, not something she’s done before other than helping me but she is a quick learner. So, she was going over how she has to take the ribs out of the freezer and beat them into submission until that separated, not sure why they don’t take them out the night before, I know, I know, this is how we do it.
Then she started with how she makes the rub, not bad and it’s all done with fresh ingredients. She talks about how she has to chop all the spices from a large bunch into fine piles, I like hearing that about a restaurant. And the rub is made fresh every day.
Then she goes into how she has to soak the smoke chips, I stop her and say that’s not correct, she said that she tried to tell them that and she has never seen her dad soak the smoke chips but they told her that you have to smoke the chips. I told her to do it their way until she owns the place. We start taking about how soaking the chips only smolders them until they dry out so they can start smoking.
The point here is that for some reason soaking the chips has gotten out as the way to do chips and you can’t change the mindset. Even at a place that is going everything else correct. I think part of the problem is that the direction on most bags used to tell you to soak the chips. I just checked two different brands and one said “Do not soak the wood” and the other made no mention to soaking the chips.
The ribs go into the smoker for several hours, also good to hear.
