The use of water or other liquids is a bit controversial in barbecue circles. People in the past didn’t add water to their pits in any fashion, and many experts don’t like the idea today. They say that barbecuing has to be a dry cooking process. The truth is that most methods of barbecuing have always involved the circulation of moisture laden air over food. This makes the process much wetter than cooking in a traditional oven. Water has a proper place in barbecuing, depending on how it’s used and what you’re cooking.
Traditional barbecue meats benefit from losing moisture as they cook, shrinking their size, but many non traditional foods can benefit from increasing humidity inside the smoker. As long as you avoid cooking the food with steam instead of smoke, extra moisture can help to prevent lean meat and fish from getting too dry
