Axtschlag sells hickory wood, chopped into shavings, in a one-kilo bag. The chips are not meant as fuel. They go into a smoker box or onto the embers, break down there in the heat and release smoke into the food; the manufacturer itself calls them “wood chips that refine your food with natural wood aroma”. In our Fuel category they therefore sit alongside briquettes and pellets without having their job.
This page is based on the product page on axtschlag.de, the manufacturer’s FAQ and usage tips, retrieved on 2 October 2026, plus the Amazon catalogue. We have not smoked with the chips. Everything about smoke and aroma is therefore either Axtschlag’s wording or derived from how wood behaves in heat, and which of the two applies is stated each time.
What exactly is behind the Amazon link
On Amazon the item is called “Axtschlag Räucherchips Hickory, 1000 Gramm sortenreine Räucherspäne für besondere Rauch- und Geschmackserlebnisse, für alle Grills & Smoker”. The catalogue lists the part number 426018664 and the model 100G00M0800V. Axtschlag itself sells the one-kilo bag under the article number 1000019 with the barcode 4260186640001, whose first nine digits exactly match the Amazon part number. The weight matches as well: 2.2 pounds according to Amazon, so 1.0 kg. We were not able to check the barcode directly on Amazon. The two matches are enough for us to make the assignment, especially as Axtschlag otherwise sells pure hickory chips individually only in bulk containers.
The product photo shows a transparent, well-filled bag with light, elongated shavings. The label reads “Wooden Barbecue Chips”, “Hickory Wood”, “Best Quality” and “100% Natural”; the ingredients line, legible on the manufacturer’s image, reads “100% Hickory Holz 1 kg”. For the shelf: Amazon gives the pack as approx. 35 x 15 x 10 cm.
According to the product page, the chips are made in Germany from natural wood without chemical additives, which comes “from sustainable forestry”. In processing, the company also applies “food regulations on a voluntary basis”. A country of origin for the hickory wood appears on none of the pages, so “Made in Germany” describes the place of processing. The question is an obvious one for this wood, because hickory belongs to the walnut family (Axtschlag calls it a “walnut-like tree”) and most species are native to North America. On the FAQ page, the manufacturer writes that it processes only wood “of known origin”.
4 to 16 or 8 to 12 millimetres?
The two figures do not fit together, although they come from almost the same sentence. On axtschlag.de, a grain size of 4 to 16 mm is given under the product name, and the description below calls it “a uniform and therefore economical chip size”. In Amazon’s item description, this sentence, also in Axtschlag’s “we” voice, appears almost word for word, only with 8 to 12 mm.
Which range applies to the goods in the Amazon warehouse cannot be established from the outside. We go by axtschlag.de, because there the one-kilo bag, the 13 kg container and both blends containing hickory carry the same range.
And the word “uniform”? A 16 mm chip has four times the edge length of a 4 mm chip. Taken literally, uniform here can only mean that no piece falls out of line.
Why chip size determines the smoke
Smoke is produced when wood breaks down under heat and the gases released in the process do not burn completely. This happens from the outside in. A small chip has a lot of surface area relative to its mass: it heats through quickly, starts smoking early and is used up early. A thick piece takes longer, but lasts longer. In a mix of fine and coarse chips, both processes run side by side: the small ones start, and the large ones are still smoking when the small ones are already ash.
Axtschlag’s own range fits this reasoning, as hickory is available there in three piece sizes. According to the product page, the smoking dust is 0 to 4 mm fine, so the chips start exactly where the dust ends. About the dust, the manufacturer writes that, owing to the fine grain size, the shavings smoulder “on their own” and need “no constant supply of heat”. At the other end are the hickory smoking chunks, 6 to 7 cm long and 2 to 5 cm wide, which according to Axtschlag smoulder slowly. The chips sit in between.
On soaking the chips, Axtschlag says nothing. About the chunks, their product page says: “Soaking the wood chunks before grilling is not necessary.”
What water in the chip does can be explained by physics. As long as water is in the wood, the heat first goes into evaporation, and where the chip is wet, it barely gets above 100 °C. Wood can only break down, and so smoke, at much higher temperatures. A soaked chip therefore steams first and smokes later. Our guide Smoking on the grill therefore advises using chips dry and adding them in small portions instead.
What Axtschlag writes about smoke and food
“The classic of American BBQ produces a strongly aromatic and sharply spicy smoke flavour,” says the product page. The FAQ page is more restrained and speaks of a “spicy smoke flavour”.
On food, the manufacturer becomes specific in two places. The product page says “Particularly well suited to meat”. The FAQ has a list per wood type, and for hickory it names lamb, pork, beef and chicken. Exactly the same line appears in the list only for walnut, the second nut wood in it. Axtschlag assigns fish, seafood and vegetables to cherry, apple, birch, beech, plum and vine, vegetables also to whisky and cedar wood.
Do you need a smoker box for the chips?
On a gas or electric grill, we would use one. There is no bed of embers there for the chips to stay on, and loose chips fall through the grate towards the burner or heating element. On a charcoal grill, you can manage without. According to the print, the bag contains only wood.
Axtschlag sells its own cup for this, the Barbecue Smoker Cup: stainless steel with 1.2 mm material thickness, lid included, according to the product page 8 cm high and 9 cm in diameter. On 2 October 2026 it cost €25.95 in the manufacturer’s shop, with €29.95 shown beside it as a comparison price. It is intended primarily for smoking dust, and the page names chips as an option (“optionally also with smoking chips”). If you do not want to buy a cup for your first attempt: the guide linked above names as a substitute a parcel of aluminium foil with a few punctures as smoke holes.
Which grills the cup suits is answered three different ways on the same page. At the top it says “with any grill”, in the bullet points “charcoal and gas grills”, in the running text “Particularly suitable for gas and electric grills”.
The instructions there are written for dust, in the original wording: “Simply fill the Smoker Cup halfway with smoking dust, close it, place it on the hottest spot on the grill grate next to the food and close the grill.” And further: “After approx. 10 minutes an even smoke develops.” For chips in the cup, there are no instructions of their own. Because chips are coarser than dust, we would expect a longer start-up time.
For chips directly on the charcoal, Axtschlag describes the Minion ring in its usage tips. You lay briquettes as a three-quarter ring at the edge of the grill and light them on one side, and the rest catch fire gradually. You are meant to stud the ring “one third with smoking chunks (wood chunks) or smoking chips”. As the embers then reach the chips one after another, the smoke is spread over the cooking time instead of arriving all at once at the start.
What a kilo of hickory costs
On Amazon the bag cost €10.49 on 5 October 2026, with Axtschlag itself as the seller. In Axtschlag’s shop it also costs €10.49, there plus postage (as of 2 October 2026).
The Weber Fire Spice Chips Hickory cost approx. €13.58 on Amazon for the double pack of 1.4 kg, which works out at around €9.70 per kilo. For the same wood type, you pay about the same at Axtschlag with €10.49 per kilo.
If you take the Smoker Cup along as well, you end up at €36.44 in Axtschlag’s shop for wood and cup, postage not included.
Three products you can weigh up alongside it
| Product | Type and quantity | Price | Our rating | Choose this if |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Axtschlag Hickory Smoking Chips 1000 g (this one) | Hickory chips, 1 kg, 4 to 16 mm according to the manufacturer | approx. €10.49 | 8.9 | you want to smoke meat with hickory on a gas, charcoal or electric grill |
| Weber Fire Spice Chips Hickory 700 g | Hickory chips, double pack of 1.4 kg | approx. €13.58 | 8.5 | you buy your smoking accessories from a Weber dealer anyway and a double pack is enough for you |
| Traeger Hickory 9 kg | Hickory pellets, 9 kg, fuel for the pellet grill | see price box there | 8.8 | you smoke with a pellet grill |
| proFagus Grillis Sommerhit Briquettes 10 kg | Beech charcoal briquettes, 10 kg, embers instead of smoking wood | approx. €30 | 9.4 | on a charcoal grill you are still missing the embers the chips go onto |
The prices are guide values from our price boxes and change without notice; the guide value for the Traeger pellets is shown in the price box on their page. The rating is our editorial assessment based on manufacturer information and price, not a measurement result.
What Axtschlag leaves open about the chips
We found the following neither on axtschlag.de nor in the Amazon catalogue:
- how many chips belong in one load and how long a load smokes
- the residual moisture of the chips
- whether the chips contain bark (for the hickory chunks, “without bark” is expressly stated)
- a forestry seal such as FSC or PEFC, and which food regulations Axtschlag applies voluntarily in processing
- safety notes, storage and shelf life
- a step-by-step guide; the product text refers to photos with “you can see on the pictures”, but only the bag and chips are shown
- the material of the bag and whether it can be resealed
- a data sheet; the download area holds only instructions for flame-grilled salmon planks and nutritional information for spice blends
Soaking and the origin of the wood are discussed above.
What applies to smoking in general, regardless of brand: smouldering wood releases carbon monoxide, a gas with no colour or smell. Smoking therefore belongs outdoors, never in enclosed spaces, not even in an open garage. You handle a hot smoker box only with a grill glove, and you tip out its contents only once they have cooled completely, because embers last a long time under ash.
Who the chips suit and when to choose something else
They suit you if your grill has a lid and you want to try smoking first without buying a smoker. The lid is not a minor matter: if it stays open, the smoke drifts upwards instead of enveloping the food.
With a pellet grill, we would proceed differently. There the pellets are heat source and smoke source at once, with an auger pushing them from the hopper into the fire pot. You then get the hickory smoke through the pellet type, for example with the Traeger hickory pellets.
For spare ribs or pulled pork that sit for hours in a kettle grill or smoker, chips are the more laborious choice. You add more often, and every opening of the lid costs temperature. For such long cooking times, Axtschlag itself, by its own account, “prefers wood chunks, as these last longer than wood chips”.
The bag is the wrong choice for anyone who wants to work by recipe, with a fixed quantity and fixed smoking time. Start with a small portion and watch the smoke. Our guide names thin, bluish smoke as the target and usually attributes thick white smoke to too much wood at once or too little air.
