The Best Kinds of Wood Chips for a Smoker
- For the most flavorful smoke, use chips or chunks of fresh wood cut in the last year. To create the maximum amount of intense smoke, soak wood chips in hot water as it expands the fibers in the wood more than cold water, which allows more penetration. Wood that is wet all the way through smolders longer and generates more smoke.
- Always use hardwood or wood from fruit trees for wood chips or chunks. Softwoods such as pine, spruce, Douglas fir or cedar not only burn too quickly to create adequate smoke, they also infuse foods with natural resins and flavors that spoil the taste of the meat.
- Woods including apple, oak, dogwood, pecan and hickory are good for smoking any type of meat, although hickory and pecan should be used sparingly as large amounts of their smoke may make meat taste harsh and bitter. The sweet flavors of alder and maple wood pair well with pork. Cherry wood enhances the flavor of both beef and pork, and its smoke makes meat turn a deep reddish-brown. A combination of cherry, oak, hickory, alder or pecan adds interesting tastes to pork and beef. The wood of peach, pear and plum trees quickly loses their flavor after cutting, adds little flavor to meats, and is best when combined with more flavorful wood varieties.
- Adding grapevine cuttings or woody herbs such as thyme, rosemary or basil to wood chips or chunks enhances the flavor of smoked beef, poultry and fish. Soak the wood chips or chunks in warmed red or white wine instead of water to accent the tastes of smoked fish or poultry.
- If you do a lot of smoking, collect a variety of wood types, label them and use them like spices in a rack. Mix and match them for different smoking projects to create unique flavor combinations. Keep a notebook of your culinary observations, taste-test results, and how much wood you used for certain meats, which will help you re-create winning dishes and avoid repeating less-successful attempts.