Tabasco Barrel Wood

[dale5351]

Has anyone here tried these wood chips?

http://countrystore.tabasco.com/prodinfo.asp?number=09227

I was just on a trip in Louisiana, and we saw them in several places.  According to Avery, they buy used Jack Daniels oak barrels and use them to ferment / age the tabasco peppers for three years.  They reuse the barrels, so no way of knowing the age of the chips.   I wonder if they give any of the tabasco flavor to the smoke?

Also, it is not clear how small the chips are.  They are said to be for gas and charcoal grills -- don't know if they are small enough to fit into a MES chip box, which is where I would use them.

 

[SmokinAl]

I've used the Jack Daniels oak barrel chips, but never seen the pepper ones. I didn't like the JD chips but I do like JD on the rocks.

 

[realtorterry]

X2 with AL

 

[daveomak]

                X3 what Al said

 

[mballi3011]

Now I have never seen that type of chips either but I would really like to find some and give it a shot too.

 

[Bearcarver]

X4 what Al said!

I wonder if you have to wear goggles to keep your eyes from watering???

Bear

 

[duanes]

Coincidently, I ran across this yesterday while ordering some spices at CajunGrocer.  I stumbled on it in the "Merchandise", "Cookware" section.  I have no idea if it is any good but will post my experience with it.

 

[dale5351]

I did a google search and found some other forum that discussed it.   The majority of the folks said that the tabasco flavor was gone from the smoke within a few minutes, then it was just like oak.

JD used to be my favored wiskey -- then I discovered Maker's Mark.  Still like JD, but MM is a smooth drink.

 

[walterwhite]

I got some from my son and daughter-in-law when they returned from a trip to New Orleans. I've tried them a couple times - tossing them on the coals along with my other smoking woods. I didn't taste anything remarkable in the resultant. They're probably similar to using ordinary oak chips. But I'm not that sensitive. It all tastes good to me. :D

 

[tyotrain]

Now that is my kind of chips.. wood with a bite

 

[duanes]

I received my Tabasco oak barrel chips.  I have not yet tried to smoke with them but will update this thread when I do.

In the picture below, you can see the comparison of the Tabasco oak chips versus Cowboy brand hickory chips.  The Tabasco chips are not consistent in size - in fact, a few would not fit into my chip box unless I break them up.  In the picture, I sorted the chips and you can see the larger ones closer to the bag and the smaller ones in the bottom right.  Many of the chips have a slight charring on them, makes sense if they were originally whiskey barrels.

The foil pan is the entire contents of one of the 2lb bags and has a subtle and wonderful aged Oak barrel smell (reminiscent of my winery tours).  You can't really smell it unless you dump them out.  I doubt there will be any real difference to seasoned oak chips but we'll see when I try these.

I emptied both bags and each had some debris in them.  I know there is another thread going on with some serious passion about debris in the chips - PLEASE do NOT go there.  I am only reporting back what I found in the bags.  The debris found was from both bags.  I would suggest anyone using these chips that they sort through the chips before they smoke them.  I found:

*) 1/4" piece of clear plastic bag (Bag #1)

*) piece of steel wire that looks like part of a barrel (Bag #1)

*) Small scrap of cardboard (Bag #2)

*) weird chunk that MAY be wood but not sure (Bag #2)

If I were rating these chips purely on the quality of chip size consistency, although they were inexpensive ($3.35 for 2 lbs. plus incidental shipping) any of the other brands out there have much more consistent chip size quality and I would not reccomend these.

BTW, the bag says "Barbeque Wood Flavors Co. Ennis, TX" - Ennis is south of Dallas.  They have a web site http://bbqwoodflavors.com/  - looks like they chip/chunk and bag for a number of labels.  Don't try there "online store" - it goes to a domain name they do NOT own (looks like a squatter site).  

 

[duanes]

Here is my update on using the Tabasco wood chips.  The chips definitely have a distinct smell in the first hour of smoking, a very sweet after note.  I purposely smoked some red potatoes as they are pretty neutral in flavor and only rubbed a little canola oil on them before smoking.  After 2.5 hours smoke, I and 2 of my children taste tested them.  Although the intial smoke was distinctive, we all agreed the resulting flavor on the food is pretty much mild oak.  I could not taste anything unique.  As I said before, the consistency of the chip sizes was not very good but the results were what you would expect for oak chips.  I'll use the two bags I have but I would not go out of my way to buy these.

 

[Fife]

 

[cody6262]

These are great. I got them while visiting Tobasco Island. They work well with many different thing, I've mostly used them for chicken but will be using them for ribs soon. 

 

[sunman76]

X4 what Al said!

I wonder if you have to wear goggles to keep your eyes from watering???

Bear

lol....

 

[cliffcarter]

Just an FYI, that small wire is a bag tie, perhaps its most common use is in tieing rebar now that most bags are plastic.