What's your favorite smoking blend….wood-wise

I like apple/hickory chunks. This year I have lots of cherry and some plum to go along with my usual. I ran out of pear and that was a super nice wood chunk for smoking venison goodies especially the jerky so I’m hoping the plum will take its place in a good way.

I smoke with charcoal and make smoke bombs using the chunks wrapped in heavy foil, shiny side in, twice, and laid right on the hot coals. Relatively airtight the foil will allow the smoke to find its way along the folds to escape but also prevents the wood chunks from flaming. The resulting left-overs in the foil are non other than charcoal chunks and these work super good in a grill. Double duty so to speak.

I know some like the smoke tubes but I have a hard time getting past the taste that the pellets impart. Maybe its the brand of pellets I have tried but I stick with my wood chunks and am super happy with the outcome.

Its getting really close to smoking time in this household. I’m hoping to add a baldheaded deer to the meat pile so I can add some Ring Bologna and maybe Kielbasa to the summer sausage and jerky already on the smoking menu.

Its interesting to hear what woods [or products] other use to smoke their vennie treats.

Fruit woods are nice but I don’t have access to the fun ones like you do, I usually stick more to ash and oak (I get trims and downed limbs from neighbors and hack them up). My favorite is alder, gives a nice full but mild smoke.

I had salmon done over Alder in Alaska and it was right out of this world. I know we have alder around here in places but not wide-spread. I haven’t a clue what the leaves or bark looks like but think I’ll do some internet searching to see if I can locate and identify some. Thanks for reminding me of that wood Zooks.

My favorite is plum then apple,but I do use a lot of cherry wood. I mostly smoke trout and salmon. Working as an arborist I always have a big supply of fruit woods and maple.

Alder for Salmon. Cherry, Apple, Pecan or a mix for pork. Hickory for beef with a little mesquite sometimes, but not much as mesquite goes a long way.

Regarding pellets, bad flavors are usually a result of the quality of pellet you use. I have a traeger, as well as an electric cook shack, and a charcoal smoker. Flavors seem the same off each one smoke wise to me, I like them all.

Depends on what I am smoking. I have the smoke tube I use with my big Weber (43 years old). Seems like I always put in some apple, but then use either hickory or mesquite depending what I am doing. Wife REALLY likes the mesquite with apple on venison back straps. I am doing some salmon on Sat and will put in more apple and just a bit of mesquite and a touch of hickory. I also use the cedar planks to put the salmon on so I can do it slow.

Fisterbottom…

Cherry, hickory/oak, mesquite.

I have no idea how I forgot hard maple. I usually collect an 8″ tree at the cabin every three years or so and bring the log back and cure/dry it in the garage’s upper level joist pockets. When dried I cut it into 3″ lengths and split those with a hatchet into 4 or 5 pieces to make smoke bombs. Maple is a super nice smoking wood.

My primary wood is cherry. Then its a matter of what the meat is. Beef, I add oak and Hickory. Pork, fowl, and fish get fruit woods. Game (deer, elk, rabbit…) get blonde woods like sugar maple

I must be getting old and losing my taste buds because I used to prefer a lighter smoke so stuck to blends with fruit & nut woods. Now, I prefer a little more smoke flavor and use either oak or hickory as the primary and use the fruit or nut wood as a secondary smoke profile. This is especially true if using a pellet smoker as I don’t believe they impart as much smoke flavor as solid wood. I have 4 smokers and each one seems to smoke meat a little differently so it is important to learn ones smoker.

I use Pecan chunks primarily. Very nice smooth flavor for just about anything. Will not be too overpowering for anything that absorbs a ton of smoke like poultry or pork. I do also add some mesquite when I am doing steaks or burgers.
I have used apple a fair amount too which goes well with pork and poultry.
I bought 2 20# bags of pecan chunks when I was in Houston over the 4th of July because its cheap down there and hard to find here. I am almost out. I generally dont use too many wood chunks, at most 3 or 4 and place them beneath the lump charcoal, but spread out so they dont all light at once.

SuperDave1959 wrote:

I have 4 smokers and each one seems to smoke meat a little differently so it is important to learn ones smoker.

Its just as important to learn how much smoke is enough too. Some people will smoke some stuff way too much. Like “burning” a drink with too much booze, too much smoke can take meat the other way as well. My wood chunks for 4 hours is all that’s needed for summer sausage and ring bologna since both get finished outside of the smoker. Jerky gets about 3 hours and is finished in the oven.

Chunk wood is the only thing smoking when heated. What holds those pellets together? Think maybe that whatever it is might be putting something in the smoke that gives the final product an off taste? I’m not a fan of the pellet smoke at all but then I have been doing the chunk wood for over 50 years and might be a bit prejudiced towards it. There is a huge difference between how chunk wood and the pellets are used and a huge difference in how much smoke each source delivers. All chunk wood delivers a very straightforward smoke without any real surface appearance change or obvious darkening until its time for the whatever to come out of the smoker. I do not use the smoker to cook what’s in it, only to deliver the smoky taste.

Tom your feedback on pellet smokers is the exact reason I didnt get one. They use binders to keep the pellet shape, similar to a charcoal briquette.
You mentioned a very good point about smoke and HOW much to let whatever it is absorb because even using light flavored woods it can get overpowering with some items especially fish.
Also, dont put anything on there until you’ve allowed the smoke to settle down. It will be billowing out at first and it needs to die down a bit before you put the meat on there or it again will absorb a ton of smoke and that initial smoke is sometimes pungent as it burns off some oils, etc.
I will be smoking backstraps and tenderloins off the deer we harvested last weekend tomorrow. Excited to see how they turn out.

Brother in law is a distributor of pellets. It’s all I use and frankly most commercial meat markets are doing the same thing.

We’ve been doing our smoking for 30ish years. We use to do the smoking and heating of the smokehouse all with natural wood. It was fun and worked for us. It was also alot more work. Our smoker is now electric heat. I have a smoke generator that I fill with pellets. I do also use the amazing smoke tubes. I have 1 that I purchased. I also have 1 that was made by a friend of mine. Its about 26″. I like that one. I can get about 7 hours of smoke from the longer tube.

These are the pellets I use. Nothing added.

You can’t even taste the “glue”. LOL

These are the pellets I use. Bacon, all my sausages, wieners, brats, anything I smoke. Fish included. It’s a great combination of pellets.

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In a lot of cases, over smoked it caused by the quality of smoke, i.e. combustion which causes acrid smoke versus clean smoke.

I smoke with wood from start to finish and I always get the thin blue smoke. Always turns out, whether it’s a one hour cold smoke or a 12 hrs hot smoke.

You don’t want the thick white acrid smoke or it’ll affect your flavor.

I usually always start with hickory and switch over to maple, cherry, apple or plum after 2-3 hrs or so. Doesn’t really much matter, they’re all good secondary wood choices. Depends on what I have more of.

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