What is good wood for smoking meat?

[Michaeljp86]

I have a smoker and want to try using green wood. I tried the stuff from the store and was told the best stuff is to cut it green and use it. I live in michigan and was wondering what kind of trees are here that I can use. I know there is 2 types of hickory trees but I dont know if these can be used or not.

Thanks alot

[solodan]

Well, I am not exactly sure what is readily available out your way, but I would guess you 've probably got some apple, and apple is real good for cooking on. Some people seem to like oak, but I find it a bit musty. I will assume you have no mesquite, but I would take manzanita over anything.
I have of course had hickory smoked stuff, but I don't know what kind it was or if that's what grows out your way. If you want some manzanita just pay a visit to any of the members in California or Oregon and I am sure any of us would be glad to sell it to you at a premium price of course

[gary]

I like to use maple  for my heat when I am smoking. Mesquite will give a sweet flavor.  I don't use oak much.  Just about any fruit tree will be good to use. 

[Tom]

Any of the hickories are good to cook with.   Most fruit woods, accepting citrus.  You best know what you are doing with citrus wood.  Definitely don't use any conifer.  Pines, cedar, cypress and the like, are full of pitch and will give food a very distasteful taste.

The bark of hickory is thick and makes good smoke and flavor too (so do the nut shells).  When I find a good smoking wood somewhere, I try to store it.  That's just to make sure that I have some when I want it.  I cook mainly on oak for heat and flavor with a "sweet" wood.

Don't mix up your sweet woods until you discover the tastes.  For example, I like Hickory on Beef, chicken and Pork, Cherry on Pork, Bay on Chicken and fish, Sweet gum on Chicken, Red Oak on Beef, White Oak on nothing (unless that's all I have), Blue Beech on chicken, Mangrove on fish....

You will be amazed at the subtle flavors from your local woods.  The biggest secret is not to overdue it.

[LeeB]

Did some 1 1/2" porkloins, pineapple, cob corn, and tomatoe halves on live oak and mesquite last night. Pure exctasy for the tongue. LeeB

[Pullinchips]

Don't use black cherry (prunus serrotina)  nasty smell to it!

-Nate

[beenthere]

Must be the 'rot' in serrotina that causes that.

[Tom]

...or it might be regional taste differences.  We cook on Cherry quite a bit.  Well, we are really not cooking on it, we are using it for its flavor.  I cook mostly on Oak as do my friends and acquaintances.  The Favored Oak is Black Jack, though I make no distinction and will use water oak just as quickly.   I burn the Oak to a small "green" fire.  It is quite hot and has lost most of its smutting characteristics by this time.   Yellow fires will blacken food with smut.

For flavor, I use small amounts of a sweet wood.  Usually these sticks are about the size of a hammer handle and their sole purpose is to flavor and sweeten meat.  My favorite is Hickory.  I also use Black Cherry frequently.  Cherry does a good job of flavoring food.  But, you must not use too much.  Black cherry fruits are so sweet that they are bitter and I think the wood must follow suite.  It only takes very small amounts of cherry to flavor a fire.  Too much and the "sweetness" turns to an almost unpleasant taste in meat.  I've discovered that it is OK to use small amounts for long periods of cooking but not to use large amounts for quick cooking, like steak.  When I use cherry, I split it into pieces about the size of a carpenter's flat pencil and use it discriminately at the end of the cooking process.

I've found that a cooking fire built of Cherry will work if it is burned almost to a coal.  When that flame gets to the "green rippling over the surface" stage, the flavors are milder and the fire hot.  To cook on a Cherry fire before it reaches this stage is tempting a strong and strange flavor in the meal.

Some people build thier cooking fire on, what I call, Sweet wood.  I have on occasion, but, would rather use an Oak.  The reason is that one must learn to control the heat of the fire to get good results.  If you stick with one species, you eventually learn what it's going to do.  Once you feel comfortable with your "cooking species", you can use sweet wood to control the flavor and take the "oak bite" from the smoke.

While you are burning the wood down for the meat or other foods laid on a grill, the fire can be used to make coffee, tea, beans and things in pots.  It's not like the "yellow" fire must be wasted.  If you have a lot of use for a hot yellow fire, two fires can be used.  Build the yellow fire for the pot meals and then move the "coals" to the meat side when they are ready.  This allows several meals to be prepared or for a very long cooking to be accomplished while drinks and side dishes (Brunswick stew) are prepared on a hotter fire.

I don't know what got me into this.  Y'all probably already know it.  I just like to talk about food and cooking, I guess. 

[beenthere]

Sure makin' me hungry 

[Jeff]

We are having the end of the school year bus driver picnic here today and we will be cooking over a naturally occurring mixture of hydrocarbon and non-hydrocarbon gases found in porous geological formations beneath the earth’s surface.    MMMMMmmm!

[Michaeljp86]

Ive had some very good smoked meat and never could get a good flavor from that wood from the store. So I would like to find some trees and chop them up. I probably shouldnt though, I should loose weight instead of wanting to cook more food . Thats all I need is to cook food that I cant get enough of. I seen a smoker in farm show that some guy made out of a old refrigerator. I would like to build a big smoker like that some time.

I heard rail road ties give good flavor. Just joking, That would probably be one of the nastiest things to cook on and may put you in the hospital. Yum tastes like asphult

[SwampDonkey]

I wonder what yellow birch would be like for flavor. Unburned it has a mint taste under the bark like black birch. I've had maple flavored bacon, but I beleive it's the syrup, not the smoke. I've always heard hickory has a good taste, but all I've eaten of hickory was artificial flavorings. 

[scsmith42]

Pecan gives steaks a wonderful flavor.  However, the coals do not last long. 

[Michaeljp86]

What about maple? sugar maple would be a good one I think. My mom said grape vines give flavor.

[sprucebunny]

I use alder to add smoke and 'all natural charcoal'. It's easy to add too much but there aren't many other traditional smoking woods available to me.

[treecyclers]

My personal preferences are mesquite and pecan.
Which, of course, are fairly readily availabble locally.
I have tons of mesquite, in fact, the bed of my truck is currently half full of it!
Almond and pecan are nice, and I use them for slow smoking exclusively.
The mesquite I use on the charcoal grill for quick smoking, and in moderate amounts.
It's VERY strong, and easily can be overdone. Been there, done that.
Apple is rare here, but on occasion I do come across some, and it's really nice too.
SD

[Paul_H]

We are having the end of the school year bus driver picnic here today and we will be cooking over a naturally occurring mixture of hydrocarbon and non-hydrocarbon gases found in porous geological formations beneath the earth’s surface.    MMMMMmmm!

Carefull,we don't want no propane language used here.This is a family site   

[Jeff]

Its about time I was corrected for that!

[UNCLEBUCK]

I use burners for heat and not too much wood because a little smoke goes a long way but I just by a bag of cherry sawdust at the store and soak it overnight with water . My neighbor cold smokes with oak or any hardwood . One neighbor smokes his sucker fish with corn cobs . Probe and get your internal temps up so you dont get bocholism and use a cure and be sure to show pictures of something yummy ! 

[Daren]

Mulberry is my favorite. Hickory is good for BBQ chicken wings, but it gives me killer heartburn. Tom's right different wood is good for different foods though, it takes some experimenting. I regularly use cherry,apple,pear... Mulberry has an almost sweet smoke, it kinda smells like a cake baking, by far my favorite.