Wooden skewers are thin sticks of wood mainly used to BBQ and roast different foods, specifically meat and chicken. You stick the different bite-sized pieces of food on the stick and then put them overheat. You can use skewers to make Brochettes or Yakitori, both of which are delicious.
Wooden skewers are also used as substitutes for forks because of their eco-friendly nature. These skewers can be disposed of quite easily. They can also be reused easily since they are made of wood. The best thing about skewers is that they are easy to handle since they are bad at conducting heat.
However, there are some drawbacks to using wooden skewers, as you will soon learn. You don’t have to worry much about anything because those problems are manageable and containable.
Why Should You Soak Wooden Skewers?
Just to be frank and clear here, Wooden Skewers aren’t digestible, so why would you soak them. The answer to this question is pretty simple. We use wooden skewers to skewer things (Bear with us for a moment).
When you put those wooden skewers overheat, the wood tends to burn up and ruin the taste of whatever you are grilling or cooking. If you don’t soak the wooden skewers, you may also find some food, especially the meat sticking to your skewers.
By soaking your wooden skewers, you can save them from burning up and destroying your food. Not to mention, you could also save your grill or whatever you are putting the skewers on from burning up. You don’t want to come back to a burning stove.
How to Soak Wooden Skewers
Soaking wooden skewers is a simple process that doesn’t need any extra measures or things. The only thing that you will need is some water and a bit of time. You put your skewers in the soaking medium and wait for things to soak up.
There are other things related to the cooking process that you can get, like some gloves, which save your hands from heat etc. You could also try getting some good girdles to put your skewers in. The best that we know of are Nutrichef Electric Griddle and Jean Patrique’s Cast Aluminium Griddle.
Soaking Wooden Skewers in Water
The only good prevention against wooden skewers burning up is water. You take your wooden skewers and wash them. Then you place them in a bowl and pour in a lot of water, at least enough to cover up all of your wooden skewers.
Wait for at least 30 minutes so that your wooden skewers become perfectly soaked. Thread whatever you want on them afterward and get cooking. That’s about as simple soaking wooden skewers can get.
How Long To Soak Wooden Skewers
You can soak your wooden skewers for more than 20 minutes and less than 90 minutes. You can soak them for more than 90 minutes, but they stop absorbing more water after that period. The absorption rate essentially plateaus after 30 minutes.
Also, if you are carrying out generic cooking processes like roasting or cooking something in the oven, you don’t need to soak them for a long time. You are only supposed to soak them enough to stop them from burning up; you aren’t preparing them for a nuclear Armageddon.
Can You Soak Wooden Skewers Overnight?
No, you shouldn’t soak wooden skewers overnight because it’s useless. Your skewers only need to be soaked for more than 20 minutes. Soaking them overnight is a bit of an overkill, especially since wood traps in a certain amount of moisture.
Wood can’t absorb more moisture over a 24 hour or 12-hour period once it has reached its maximum capacity. You don’t have to soak your wooden skewers, and so you shouldn’t soak them overnight.
How to Soak Wooden Skewers Fast
To be very honest with you, there isn’t a quick soak method for skewers because the normal soaking method is already pretty fast. You only have to soak your skewers for 20 to 30 minutes, which is a pretty short time by normal cooking standards.
In this case, looking for a quicker method is useless. The only way to get a quicker cooking experience with a recipe that needs skewers is to use metal skewers because they don’t need soaking. Again, you will miss out on some of the flavors but save up on some time.
Sources
- Kitchen Accessory Buying Guides
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