Woods for Smoking

Lesson

Smoking meat, or combining smoking woods with grillin’ (called Smilling), can add a wonderful smoky flavor to chicken, steaks, or chops. Woods that work best for grillin’ and smoking are hardwoods, fruit, and nut woods (see the list below). But you can get great results by using any type of wood with any type of meat.

You can easily find many varieties of woods for smoking

Some woods are more easily available locally, such as alder in the Pacific Northwest, mesquite in Texas, and pecan in the South. But you can find many varieties of wood online, at a local barbecue or fireplace store, or even from local farmers. Find a local peach, apple, cherry or other fruit orchard and ask the farmer for scrap wood they have available from when they trim back the trees. Finish up our courses on grillin’ and you can trade a barbecue dinner for the wood.

Before using the wood chips, soak them in water for up to 2 hours.

Best woods for smoking, grillin’, and our new technique, Smilling

Alder: A light flavor used best with poultry.

Apple: A sweet, mild flavor that is perfect to use with pork and chicken.

Cherry: Sweet, sometimes a tad bitter; used for ham and pork roasts.

Hickory: Probably the most famous smoking hardwood. It’s the wood most popular in the South, and gives a strong, woodsy flavor to pork butts, shoulders, and ribs.

Maple: A mild and mellow wood that imparts a sweet flavor. Perfect for chicken.

Mesquite: Not a common wood to use for smoking, as it burns very hot and can sometimes be bitter. However, soaked mesquite chips add a nice Texas-style flavor to beef. Just stay away mesquite with pork or poultry; the flavor is just too strong.

Oak: A strong but not bitter smoke. Great on steaks, prime rib, and beef tenderloin.

Pecan: Another mild favorite that is popular in the South and Southwest. We love what this does for chicken.

Sweet Fruit Woods: Apricot, pear, plum, peach, and nectarine woods are all great for pork roasts, ribs, and poultry.