Best Types of Wood for Smoking
If you are just starting off learning the art of smoking your meat, you should begin with just a small amount of wood to see how you like the flavor.
Afterwards you can add more wood to increase the smoky favor.
You don’t want to overuse it and overpower your meat, as it is possible to get too much smoky flavor over a long cooking period and it could actually make your meat bitter tasting.
This is quite true with the heavier wood flavors such as oak and hickory.
Mesquite and the woods from fruit trees don’t ever seem to do this to your meats since they have a much lighter smoke flavor.
If you cook beef brisket for up to twenty hours, for example, you won’t have a problem with a bitter taste.
You can use just about any kind of wood for smoking except pine and cedar. You can try out different woods or combinations of different woods with different meats.
You should always use a wood which is well seasoned or dry. You don’t ever want to use green woods, as they can ruin your cooker for good.
Many people prefer mesquite wood over all the rest. It burns rather hot, and it has a light and sweet taste.
It goes great with pork, beef, poultry, fish and lamb, so you have all kinds of options when use mesquite wood chips.
On a side note, meat which has been smoked will taste even better the next day.
The smoky flavor seems to get better and better with time, so your leftovers will taste even better on the second and third days.
You can always cook some extra meat so that you can enjoy these leftovers!
Below you will find a very useful chart showing you all the different kinds of wood types, what kinds of characteristics they have, and what meats they go with.
This will make it much easier for you to choose which woods you want to cook with what meats, depending upon the kind of flavor you are aiming to get.
Wood Type |
How you may feel |
Best fit with |
| Oak | Heavy Smoke Flavor, One of the most Popular | Red meat, Pork, Fish |
| Hickory | Strong and Smokey taste, one of the most common | All meats specially pork and ribs |
| Mesquite | Sweet, Light Taste | All meats specially ribs and vegetables |
| Pecan | Mostly like hickory but Lighter then it. | Almost anything |
| Apple | Sweet, Fruity smoker flavor | Beef, poultry and good for salmon, trout. |
| Acadia | Similar to mesquite but lighter than it. | Most meats and vegetables, good with beef. |
| Almond | Nutty and sweet | Good with all meat |
| Alder | Light and delicate with slight sweetness. | Fish and Poultry |
| Apricot | Milder and sweeter then hickory | All meats |
| Ash | Fast burning, light | Red meats and fish |
| Birch | Slightly Sweet | Pork and poultry |
| Cherry | Sweeter then fruit flavor | All meats |
| Grape vines | Almost like fruit woods | All meats |
| Grapefruit | Medium smoker flavor | Good with beef ,poultry and pork |
| Lemon | Medium Smoker flavor | Good with beef ,poultry and pork |
| Lilac | Light Smoker flavor | Good with seafood and lamb |
| Maple | Somewhat sweet, mild flavor | Good with Vegetable |
| Peach | Sweet but different then other | Suit with almost anything |
| Persimmon | Strong but tasty piney flavor | Red meats |
| Pear | Somewhat sweet, almost like apple | Pork and poultry |
| Plum | Mild flavor | Most meat and fish |
