Barbecue Wood & Smoke - Different Types, How To Use It

Barbecue Wood & Smoke: Different Types, How to Use it.
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http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/zen_of_wood.html
What You Need To Know

About Wood, Smoke, And
Combustion
"When a
lovely
flame dies,
Smoke
gets in
your
eyes."
Song
"Smoke
Gets In Your
Eyes" by
Jerome Kern
and Otto
Harbach,
performed
by The
Platters
By
Meathead
Goldwyn
Smoke is
what
Related articles
Grilling with wood as your only fuel
Smoking with wood as your only fuel
Barbecue wood suppliers
Stop soaking your wood
Pellet smokers
All about charcoal and combustion
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Wood burning ovens
The different types of wood

Logs. Cut from
hardwoods, fruitwoods,
and nutwoods, but
never pine and
softwoods that have a
lot of turpines and sap.
These woods must be
dried. At right is a
small part of the acre
sized pile of post oak at
Kreuz Market in
Lockhart. TX.
Some cooks throw
whole logs into their
pits, but you must have
the right pit and skill
set to pull this off.
Done improperly this
can easily ruin your
meat.
More commonly, pitmasters cooking with wood preburn the
logs reducing them to embers before cooking with them.
Smoking with logs usually needs to be done at a higher
temp, perhaps 275F rather than 225F at which most
smoking is done. It needs this higher temp in order to
create clean smoke.
Chunks. Wood chunks from golf ball to fist size are fairly
easy to find in hardware stores. Chunks burn slowly, and
often a chunk or two about the size of an egg weighing 2 to
4 ounces is all that is necessary for a load of food. Because
they are slow, steady sources of smoke, they are in many
ways, the most desirable. When you use chunks, you can
add one or two at the start of the cooking cycle and you
don't need to keep opening the unit and mess with the
equilibrium in the cooking chamber's atmosphere.
Chips. About the size of coins, chips are also common and
easy to find. They burn quickly and you may find that you
need to add them more than once during the cooking cycle.
Chips are fine for short cooks, but for long cooks, chunks
are better.
Pellets. Pellets are made by compressing wet sawdust and
extruding it in long pencil thick rods. They are broken into
small bits about 1/2" long. Food grade pellets contain no
binders, glue or adhesives, and when they get wet they
revert to sawdust immediately. The machines must be
lubed with food oils. Pellets were originally developed for
household heaters. These pellets should not be used for
cooking because they might have pine and binders, and the
machines are lubed with petroleum.
Some cookers use pellets as the main fuel, for both flavor
and heat and pellet cookers do very very well in
competition. Because they can be fed into the fire in a very
controlled manner, usually by an auger, pellet cookers can
be regulated with a thermostat, making them very
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controllable.
Food grade pellets can be a good concentrated source of
smoke flavor on grills and smokers, and a handful or two is
usually all that is necessary for ribs or fowl.
Pellets used as fuel to fire pellet grills are mostly oak, a
stable burning wood. If they say they are hickory, they are
usually less than half hickory, a fact that does not always
appear on the label. They usually come in 10-40 pound
bags.
BBQr's Delight makes
12 flavors of pellets in
small 1/10 pound or 1
pound bags that are
100% flavor wood
including alder, apple,
cherry, hickory, orange,
pecan, and others.
Their Jack Daniel's
pellets are a mix of oak
and charcoal from oak whiskey barrels, and their Savory
Herb is oak with herbs in the blend. I love using these
products because they are easy to measure and control.
They only burn for about 20 minutes at 225F, so you must
get your meat on before the wood.
There's a pretty good forum for people who have pellet
cookers at Pelletheads.com.
Pellet chunks. Another
form of pellet is the pellet
chunk or brick, the most
notable being made by
Mojo-Bricks (right).
These are wood chips and
sawdust from the mills
compressed until they
bind. They come in a
variety of flavors. I have
had very good luck with
them on a cariety of
smokers.
Bisquettes. Bisquettes
are another variation on the compressed sawdust idea
made for the Bradley Smoker. They look like small brown
hockey pucks.
Sawdust. Sawdust can also be used for flavor, but it burns
quickly and is rarely used. There are even a few small
smokers, like the Camerons, that use smoldering sawdust.
Stop the nonsense!

I recently got a fancy infographic with some chef telling me
to smoke beef with hickory, pork with apple, chicken with
maple, etc. Here is what I wrote the publisher:
Humbug.
What kind of hickory? Shagbark hickory or pignut hickory?
Hot climate or cool climate? Bark or no bark? Are you
cooking with logs? Charcoal briquets and chunks of wood?
Hardwood charcoal and chips of wood? Gas and sawdust?
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Straight wood pellets? Wood cured for three years or less

than a year? How much wood did you add?
What color smoke? Blue smoke tastes different than white
smoke and that depends a lot on the fire temp. Did you
know that pellets are almost always blended with oak to
make them feed better and that some companies use oils to
give pellets flavor?
Cooking hot with shagbark hickory logs from the Finger
Lakes may taste more like black walnut than cooking with
hardwood charcoal and two handsful of barkless chunks of
pignut hickory from Napa Valley.
And how do you know for sure that the bag labeled cherry
chunks is really cherry? What if the rickyard is out of cherry
when an order for 500 bags comes in from Home Depot? Do
you think they might throw something else in the cherry
bags and ship it out?
There are no wood varietal label laws like there are for
wines. There are plenty of horror stories of Moroccan cold
press olive oil labeled as Italian extra virgin, Salvadoran
coffee labeled Jamaica Blue Mountain, sheepshead labeled
red snapper, Rhone labeled Burgundy, and athletes taking
steroids. Pulling those stunts might get you jail time.
Switching oak for cherry might get you cash. There are no
government inspectors (and I hope there never are). Are
there well respected national brands of wood you can trust
like Robert Mondavi wines? Nope.
OK, before you beat me up too much, I'll admit, mesquite is
so strong it is pretty easy to taste, and on some foods, like
salmon, wood differences are more obvious. But most of
the time the smoke flavor is lost under the flavor of meat,
rub, and sauce, and frankly, that's OK with me. Smoke
should just be another instrument in the orchestra, not the
soloist.
Show me a pitmaster who can identify woods in a double
blind tasting and I might change my tune. Meanwhile, I
repeat: Humbug.
For gas grills

Getting smoke on gas grills is sometimes tricky. You need
to experiment when you are not cooking food. Here are
some things to try.
Use chunks, not chips. Wood chunks are best for gas
grills because chips and pellets often fall through. But
sometimes they just won't smolder. A reader, Nei Ng, found
a solution: "The first thing to do is to wrap the wood in foil
like the wood chip pouches. Make a small pile of charcoal on
the flavor bars [or heat dispersers]. [They will ignite, but]
the pile isn't hot enough to really change the overall
temperature, and the wood should be lit by the time the
grill has reached 225F. Place the wood chunks wrapped in
foil over the hot charcoal and they should start smoking
within a few minutes."
The foil pouch for chips. Put your wood chips in a foil
pouch or make a smoke bomb (above). For a pouch, use
heavy duty foil or two or three layers or regular foil. Poke
holes in the top so the smoke can escape. Place the pouch
as close to the heat as possible. Reader Jeff Hale has this
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tip: "Make up a bunch of pouches in advance. When one is

burnt up... throw another one on." You will know when to
add a new pouch when the smoke stops. Another option is
to use a small aluminum pan with holes poked in the
bottom.
If you are having problems getting the wood in a pouch to
smoke, before you put the meat on, turn the burner on
high, put the foil packet on and wait for the chips to begin
smoking. Then dial the burner down so you can get the
oven to 225F. Or try Nei Ng's technique of using charcoal
(above).
If the wood burns. It is possible that your wood might
just catch on fire and not smoulder. If it doesn't, you need
to be creative. Try moving the wood so it is not in direct
contact with the flame. Try putting the wood in a small
cast-iron frying pan or a flattened steel can. Be creative!
Outsmart the flame!
Smoking indoors
If you have a good exhaust system this method works well.
If you have a wimpy fan, don't even think about it.
Get a stainless roasting pan, cover the bottom with heavy
duty foil. Sprinkle sawdust on top or the Chinese tea mix
(at right). The best source of sawdust is to take a handful of
wood pellets, get them wet, and either let them air dry or
pan dry them on a low temp.
Once the sawdust or tea is done, lay a layer of foil over
them, but not all the way to the edge. This keeps drippings
from extinguishing the smoldering wood. Place a rack like a
pie cooling rack above the second layer of foil, them the
food goes on the rack, and then cover the whole shootin'
match. You can make a cover several ways.
Lay a second, identical roasting pan upside down on top,
and clamp it down with metal or wooden clothes pins.
Lay a sheet pan on top of the roasting pan and weight it
down with a sauce pan or a brick.
If the food is tall, you can fashion a lid from foil, just
crimp it tight around the edges. Foil is a good method if
you need to insert a food thermometer.
Preheat the oven to at least 350F and crank up the
exhaust.
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Mo's Smoking Pouch

In recent years there have been perhaps a
dozen new products brought on the market
to hold wood and add smoke to the cooker. I
have played with a number of them, and the
one that impresses me the most is this
clever design, especially for use with gas
grills.
It is a pouch of fine mesh stainless steel that holds wood
chips or pellets. The airspaces in the mesh are small
enough that they limit the amount of air that gets in so the
wood smolders and never bursts into flame. It puts out
plenty of clean white smoke, usually within a few minutes.
Best of all, it smokes just by putting it on top of the cooking
grate or you can stand it on edge and slip it between the
grates and the back of your grill. You don't have to squeeze
it in down by the burners although you can if you need to
space on top of the grates. And it works. It holds enough
wood for about 15 minutes for short cooks, but you need to
refill it, or buy a second pouch, for long cooks like pork
shoulder and brisket. Refilling can be tricky since the steel
gets hot and stays hot for a while. If you have good
gloves, no problem.
Meathead's smoke bombs

This method is ideal for
both gas and charcoal
cookers when you have
a long cook and getting
under the grate will be
tricky, like when there's
a full packer brisket on
board.
Get two disposable
aluminum loaf pans.
Add dry wood to both.
Pour enough water in
one to cover the wood.
The dry pan will start to
smoke quickly. About
15 minutes after it is all
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consumed, the other pan will have dried out and begun
smoking.
Getting the correct amounts of wood and water may take
you a few cooks to perfect, but you will figure it out. I can
tell that much about you.
Chinese tea smoking

For centuries the Chinese have been preserving foods and
adding flavor with tea smoke. In fine Chinese restaurants
tea-smoked duck is a popular delicacy. The flavor is
distinctive and significantly different than smoking with
wood. Experimenting with this Chinese technique can really
add spark to duck, chicken, fish, pork, and even beef.
Here's how:
We begin by making an aluminum foil pouch, then stuff it
with tea and other aromatics, poke holes in it, and place the
pouch on the coals or on the gas burner of your grill. You
can riff on the contents of the pouch, but here's the basic
recipe:
Ingredients
1/4 cup tea leaves
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup rice
zest of 1/2 orange
10 whole star anise pods
2 (3" long) cinnamon sticks
About the tea. You can use any tea you like, and I usually
use whatever is the oldes tea I have instock. Aromatic teas
are best.
About the sugar. The sugar burns and smokes and creates
a burnt marshmallow scent.
About the rice. Don't leave this out. It smolders and helps
maintain the burn. You can use aromatic rice like jasmine
rice.
About the orange zest. You don't have to use a zester, a
vegetable peeler will work. Just scrape off the orange skin
and try to exclude the white pith. Orange skin is filled with
aromatic oils that are important to the scent. You can try
other citrus such as lemon, lime, or grapefruit.
About the aromatics. This basic recipe uses star anise
and cinnamon. You can play with others such as cumin
seed, mustard seed, herbs, galanga, dried ginger,
peppercorns, or cloves.
Smoking with herbs

We have a nice herb garden and at the end of the season
there are always a few unpicked oregano, basil, and other
herb bushes. I cut them above the roots, and stick them in
paper bags to dry. Then I crumble them, and I throw them
on the grill after the meat is on. They burn fast, put out a
lot of smoke that smells like you are doing something
illegal, and add an exotic aroma to the food. I use them
mostly on my gas grill on seafood, which cooks quickly and
doesn't have time to absorb slowly smoldering hardwood.
differentiates barbecue from other types of cooking.
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Originally all barbecue and grilling was done with logs of dried hardwood as
the fuel source.
Heat cooked the meat, and smoke from the wood and the dripping juices
landed on the meat imparting a distinctive seductive scent that is the essence
of grilling and barbecue. But it is difficult to control the heat and flavor when
cooking with logs, so today, only a few expert pitmasters cook with logs only.
Today, most barbecues use charcoal or gas to produce the heat, and they get
flavor and aroma from the addition of measured amounts of wood in the form
of chips, chunks, bisquettes, pellets, logs, or sawdust. Click here for a good
buying guide to smokers.
Hardwoods, which include fruit and nut woods, have compact cell structures,
and they are the best woods for cooking. Softwoods, like pine, fir, spruce,
redwood, hemlock, and cypress are all evergreens (coniferous trees), and they
have more air, more pungent sap, and they burn fast. They are not
recommended for cooking. We'll talk more about wood choices below.
Combustion byproducts
Logs, charcoal, gas, pellet, and electric cookers each produce tastably different
flavors because each fuel produces a unique combination of combustion
byproducts.
Electric cookers use a hot coil for heat, so there is no combustion and thus no
combustion gases. Even if you put wood chips on an electric coil, the flavor of
the smoke is vastly different, and to my palate, inferior because the food lacks
the complexity that combustion gases the other fuels produce. The secret to
good flavor is the right combustion gases plus smoke from wood.
Wood also plays a role in the color of the meat and the formation of the crust
on the meat, also called the bark. Below are two slabs of ribs with the same
spice rub but no sauce. The one on the left was cooked on a charcoal smoker.
The one on right was cooked on a gas smoker. You can see and taste the
difference.
What is combustion?
The simplified technical definition, as it applies to barbecue and grilling, is that
combustion is a the sequence of chemical reactions between materials, oxygen
and at least one other fuel, producing a change of the chemistry of the fuels,
producing heat, light, smoke, and gases. Here's how it applies in the real
world: Wood and pellets. Fresh cut hardwood has a lot of water in it, up to
50% by weight, it produces a lot of steam and off flavors during combustion,
and it takes up to 45% more energy (than charcoal or gas) to dry it out, so
most wood for cooking is hardwood that has been air dried. Dried hardwood is
rarely totally dry, perhaps 5% water. Of the remaining 95%, about 40% is
cellulose, about 40% hemicelluloses, 19% lignin, and 1% minerals. Actual
numbers will vary depending on the wood species, subspecies, age, soil,
climate, and vintage.
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Cellulose is a long chain molecule, a type of carbohydrate. Hemicelluloses are

made of different carbohydrates and sugars. Lignin is another complex
polymer from the cell walls that gives the wood strength. The minerals in wood
include oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, potassium, carbon, sulfur, sodium,
chlorine, and heavy metals. These minerals can significantly impact the aroma
and smoke flavor.
Hardwoods have more minerals than softwoods, but, according to The Forest
Encyclopedia, their smoke flavor is influenced more by the climate and soil in
which they are grown than the species of wood. This is very important to note,
especially when you are caught up in the game of deciding which wood to use
for flavor. This means that the differences between hickory grown in Arkansas
and hickory grown in New York may be greater than the differences between
hickory and pecan grown side by side.
Wood. Wood combustion starts to take place in the 500 to 600F range and
requires significant amounts of oxygen. Let's call the combustion point 575F
on average for the sake of discussion. At that temp the wood has absorbed a
lot of heat and the water has been driven off as vapor. It is ready to burn.
Charcoal. Charcoal is almost pure carbon made from wood that has been
preburned in an oven with very little oxygen. When burned charcoal produces
heat, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, water, and other gases. It burns
hotter and cleaner than wood. For a detailed explanation of how it is made and
how it works, read my article on the Zen of Charcoal.
Propane and liquid natural gas. When propane and oxygen are ignited,
they produce heat, light, water vapor, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and
other gases.
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What is flame
Primary combustion is the burning of oxygen and the other fuel, and
secondary combustion is the burning of the gases emitted at high temps. It is
the combustion of gases that produces flames. This consumption of gases also
produces most of the heat.
In primary combustion, heat creates gases that rise from the fuel creating
something like a gaseous bubble. The gas bubble is surrounded by air that
contains about 20% oxygen. If there is enough energy the gas ignites and
starts the process of combining its molecules with the oxygen. Where the gas
and air meet, and if all the gas is able to combine with the oxygen, a blue
flame is visible. If the gases don't burn completely, the flame glows yellow or
orange. If unburned gases escape, the bubble cools and turns into smoke.
Meanwhile, the energy from the combustion causes more gas to evaporate.
When there is too much oxygen, the flame is yellow and orange. A gas grill has
a venturi, a valve that blends the gas and oxygen like a carburetor. When
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properly blended the flame is mostly blue.
What is smoke?
When burned thoroughly in a lab, wood produces about 8,600 BTUs per pound
of heat, about half of the mass is converted to carbon dioxide and about half
to water vapor. In the real world, wood is never burned thoroughly in a grill or
smoker. If the wood does not get enough oxygen it can still undergo primary
combustion, but not secondary. It will not burst into flame, it will smolder, and
smoldering wood produces lots of smoke and a different flavor than burning
wood. That's why ribs smoked by a fire made from logs tastes different than
ribs smoked by a fire made from charcoal, gas, or electricity.
Smoke includes as many as 100 compounds in the form of microscopic solids
including char, creosote, ash, as well as combustion gases that include carbon
monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, polymers, and liquids such as
water vapor, and phenols.
To keep it simple, let's just say that smoke is made of three things,
microscopic solids, gases, and water vapor.
When they contact food they can stick to the surface and flavor it. Most of the
flavor comes from the gases, not the smoke particles, according to the
AmazingRibs.com science advisor, Dr. Greg Blonder, and the composition
of the gases depends on composition of the wood, the temperature of
combustion, and the amount of oxygen available.
Smoke from wood or charcoal for cooking can range from bluish, to white, to
gray, to yellow, brown, and even black. Blonder explains that the color
depends on the particle size and how it scatters and reflects light to our eyes.
Pale blue smoke particles are the smallest, under a micron in size, about the
size of the wavelength of light. Pure white smoke consists of larger particles, a
few microns in size, and they scatter all wavelengths in all directions. Gray
smoke contains particles large enough to actually absorb some of the light and
colors. The most desirable smoke is blue as seen coming from the smoker on
the left in the photo below by Grant Erwin in Seattle.
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Blue smoke
Blue smoke is the holy grail of low and slow pitmasters. Dr. Blonder explains
that the color depends on the particle size and how it scatters and reflects light
to our eyes. Pale blue smoke particles are the smallest, under a micron in size,
about the size of the wavelength of light. Pure white smoke consists of larger
particles, a few microns in size, and they scatter all wavelengths in all
directions. Gray and black smoke contains particles large enough to actually
absorb some of the light and colors.
Black and gray smoke happen when the fire is starving for oxygen, and they
can make bitter, sooty food tasting like an ash tray. Billowing white smoke is
common when you just start the fire, and when the fuel needs lots of oxygen.
If it doesn't get enough and if the fuel is not emitting gases for secondary
combustion, the fuel smolders and produces white smoke.
If you are cooking hot and fast, white smoke is a great way to get some smoke
flavor on the food in a hurry. But white smoke usually has a lot of
contaminants from an incomplete secondary combustion and prolonged
exposure to white smoke can still make good food, but not as good a blue
smoke.
Sterling Ball, a champion pitmaster who owns a guitar string business,
describes the art of making blue smoke as similar to tuning a guitar. "You need
control of your tools, the pit, fuel, oxygen, fire, heat, and practice." Here are
some tips on how to get blue smoke for long cooks.
Keep your pit clean. Carbon buildup, soot, and sticky grease on the inside
can create off flavors and drip on the food. Often that "flavorful" grease is
creosote. Many competition pitmasters power wash after a cookoff.
Use dry wood. Some pitmasters will even put the wood on top of their
smoker to drive off any remaining water. Some remove the bark from their
wood.
Use large chunks or logs. Don't use chips or pellets. You need something to
burn down to embers.
Build a small hot fire. You want to see flame. Hot fires burn off the
impurities that are created in an incomplete secondary combustion. That
means that you need a lot of oxygen so you want your exhaust vent open all
the way. The hot air rising through the chimney will draw in air through the
intake vent. You will probably want it open wide or close to it. Low smoldering
wood creates dirty smoke. Don't let your embers sit in ash. Keep them on a
grate above the bottom of the firebox. Knock ash off occasionally and if
necessary, remove it.
This is why high quality offset smokers, the ones that look like a big barrel on
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its side with a small barrel attached, are so popular with experienced
pitmasters. But there is a big difference between the cheap offsets at the
hardware stores and the serious pits made for competition teams and caterers.
Cheapo Offset Smokers (COS) include Brinkmann Pitmaster, Brinkmann
Smoke'N Pit Professional (a.k.a. SNPP), Char-Broil Silver Smoker, Char-Broil
American Gourmet, and especially the Char-Griller Smokin Pro. They are
nothing but headaches. Serious Offset Pits (EOS) include Horizon, Jambo,
Klose, Lang, Meadow Creek, Peoria, Pitmaker, and Yoder. They are superb
cooking tools.
Allow the pit to warm up. Start the fire at least an hour before the food
goes on. Adjust your airflow and get the temp, fire, and smoke stabilized.
Warm the walls of the cooker. It is harder to get blue smoke in cold weather.
Start the fuel on the side. If you can't get the cooker to cooperate, or if you
have temp yo-yoing up and down, start your fuel on the side and add only hot
coals. If you are cooking with wood, start burning it on the side and add only
glowing embers. If you are using charcoal, use briquets. I use a wheel barrow.
Lump is not often completely carbonized and can create more smoke than
briqs. Remember, properly burning charcoal doesn't produce much smoke.
Use good thermometers. Digitals are the best.
Practice. Do dry runs without food until you can anticipate when more fuel is
needed, how to adjust the airflow, and how to react when the smoke starts
going bad.
Cook indirect. If the meat drips on the fire, water and fat will burn and make
dirty smoke. These drippings can create flavor, especially for short fast cooks,
but for long low and slow cooks, they can create dark smoke. Use your senses.
It's hard to see the color of the smoke at night, but the smell should be sweet,
with meat and spice fragrances dominating. The smoke aromas should be faint
and seductive, perhaps like vanilla, not like a bonfire smell.
Creosote
Creosote is among the compounds in smoke and it is the Jekyll and Hyde of
smoke cooking.
On the Dr. Jekyll side, creosote contributes positively to the flavor and color of
smoked foods and acts as a preservative, among the reasons that smoking
meat was used for preservation before refrigeration.
Blonder says "Creosote is always present in charcoal or wood smoke, and a
few components of creosote (guaiacol, syringol, and phenols) are the largest
contributors to smoke flavor. No creosote, and the meat might as well have
been boiled."
On the Mr. Hyde side, "If the balance of the hundreds of chemicals in creosote
shifts, it can taste bitter rather than smoky."
What is creosote and where does it come from, and why is it two faced?
Commercial creosote is produced by distilling tars from primarily beechwood or
bituminous coal (not charcoal). Careful control of the combustion temperature,
oxygen flow, and pressure produce a wide range of aromatic oils and tars.
Creosote from coal tar is the black stuff used to preserve telephone poles and
railroad ties. Coal tar creosote is classified as a possible carcinogen. Anybody
who has a wood burning fireplace knows that creosote from logs can cling to
chimneys, clog them, and even ignite, burning down the house.
These industrial chemicals give the creosote found in barbecue smoke a bad
name. I am unable to find any research that implicates the small amounts of
creosote in barbecue with health risks.
Many cooks believe that the best smokers and grills are coated with a thick
black "seasoning" from use. Alas, much of the seasoning on the inside of a
smoker is creosote. Some of it is carbon, and some of it is just plain grease. It
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is not likely to combust, but it can vaporize or drip on the food. Many of the
best cooks powerwash the interior of their cookers regularly. For more, read
my article on grill and smoker cleaning and maintenance.
According to Blonder, "When you smoke low and slow at temperatures like
225F, many smokers require you to control the fire by damping the oxygen
supply which moves it below the ideal combustion zone, creating black smoke,
soot, and more creosote. The best smokers combust at a high temp to create
the ideal flavor profile and direct a small fraction of the smoke across the
meat.
"To control creosote, use less charcoal so you can burn it hot and more
efficiently, but the smaller number of embers will provide less heat. You will
have to replenish the coals more often, but the food will taste better and there
will be less creosote. Avoid resinous woods such as pine and cedar.
"Humidity can affect creosote production and its flavor profile because
moisture in smoke can scavenge some of the creosote compounds selectively
and then it can condense on cool meat and cool smoker walls, especially in
winter. All this means there is plenty of room for barbecue skill and
experience."
Here are other ways to avoid creosote formation:(1) Avoid resinous woods
such as pine and cedar; (2) Don't add a lot of cold meat to the smoker at
once; (3) If you are using charcoal or logs, use a small hot fire that does not
have to be stifled by closing dampers to keep the heat down; (4) Cook in
warm weather; (5) Preheat the smoker and give the walls time to warm up;
(6) Don't add a lot of cold charcoal, start it up first in a chimney; (7) If you are
cooking with wood, preheat the logs by letting them sit on the firebox or in the
cooking chamber; (8) Leave the chimney open at all times; (9) If the fire gets
too hot, don't close the dampers, open the firebox door to let out some of the
heat; (10) Check the cooking chamber temperature with a digital thermometer
at least every 30 minutes; (11) Practice, practice, practice.
Smoke and food

In a smoker or grill, after combustion, the smoke rises and flows from the burn
area into the cooking area. Some of it comes in contact with the food, but
most goes right up the chimney and very little contacts the food.
Blonder explains why: "Around every object is a stagnant halo of air called the
boundary layer. Depending on airflow, surface roughness, and so on, the
stagnant layer of air around a piece of meat might be a millimeter or two in
thickness. When smoke particles approach the meat's surface, they follow that
boundary layer around the food. Very few ever touch down. We've all cursed a
form of this piece of physics while driving: Gnats follow the airstream over the
windshields, while larger insects leave green sticky splats at the point of
impact."
To see the way
smoke sticks to
food, Blonder did
some
experiments. He
suspended three
cotton disks in a
smoker at 230F
for 30 minutes.
One disk was dry,
one soaked in oil,
one soaked in
water. The results are pretty dramatic. Smoke adhered to the oiled surface
more than the dry surface, and far more stuck to the wet surface. Remember,
the atmosphere inside a smoker is as dense as a London fog, yet no visible
smoke got stuck on the dry cotton pad.
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Why does the wet pad gather so much more smoke? Blonder explains that
smoke impacting the dry pad simply bounces off because there is nothing to
hold them. But the oily and wet pads are tackier. But why does the wet pad
attract more smoke than the oily pad? The answer is thermophoresis,
according to the physicist.
Thermophoresis is
a force that
moves particles
from a warm to a
cold surface. He
showed this by
placing two
smooth, dry,
glazed tiles in the
pellet smoker.
The left tile is a
control. It did not
go in the smoker
and is shown here just so we can see what it looks like before smoking. The
middle tile was warmed to 225F before being placed in the smoker, and the
right hand tile was chilled to 29F.
In the first experiment, the wet cotton pad was cooled by the evaporation of
the moisture in the pad so it was well below the temp of the others. That's why
it was smokier.
The same thing happens to meat when you put it in the smoker. If it is cold
and wet it will hold more smoke. As it warms and dries out, less smoke is
absorbed.
Smoke flavor is almost all on the surface of the food

As we see, smoke particles glom onto the surface of foods. There they may
dissolve and penetrate a bit below the surface but not very far. Rarely more
than 1/8". This is the same phenomenon with marinades. Meats, especially,
are hard to penetrate. Don't believe me? Here's how to prove it to yourself.
Get a nice thick piece of meat, at least 1" thick, like a cross section of pork loin
or a brisket or pot roast. Smoke the heck out of it at 225F until it is 190F to
200F internal temp. Let it cool a bit and taste it. Yummmmmm! Smoky! Now
cut off the surface and edges in 1/8" thick slices. Make sure the center meat
doesn't get to roll around on the cutting board in the juices from the surface.
Now taste the center. No smoke!
Also, building enough smoke to create flavor takes time. On a thin skirt steak
for fajitas, there will be much less smoke flavor than on a 1" thick ribeye steak
cooked to medium rare (about 130F). A thick steak will have much less
smoke flavor than a chicken breast the same thickness because the chicken
needs to be cooked longer, to 165F. And a turkey breast will have more
smoke flavor than all of them.
Does meat stop taking on smoke?

There is a popular myth that at some point the meat stops taking on smoke.
Sorry, but meat does not have doors that it shuts at some time during a cook.
There is a lot of smoke moving through the cooking chamber although
sometimes it is not very visible. If the surface is cold or wet, more of it sticks.
Usually, late in the cook, the bark gets pretty dry and when the coals are not
producing a lot of smoke, we are fooled into thinking the meat is somehow
saturated with smoke. Throw on a log and baste the meat and it will start
taking on smoke again. Just don't over-baste or aggressively spray, in seconds
you can wash off smoke that took hours to build up along with your spice rub.
Enough is enough
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One of the biggest mistakes we frequently make is using too much smoke. Too
much smoke can make your meat bitter or taste like an ash tray. Smoke is like
salt. You can always add more but you can't take it out. Do not try to cook
with wood. It is too hard to control the temp and the amount of smoke. When
you become an expert, you may be able to cook with wood only, but at the
outset stick to charcoal, propane, or electricity. I cannot give you a precise
amount because each cooker is different and the amount of wood to get the
right flavor will depend on the volume of the cooking chamber, the airflow,
leaks, how often you peak, the kind of wood you use, and of course, your
preferences. You will need to experiment, but a good rule of thumb is start
experimenting with about two ounces of wood, regardless of the cut or weight.
For dense, thick cuts of meat such as pork butts for pulled pork or beef
brisket, you can double or triple the amount of smoke. If the results are not
smoky enough, you can add more wood on your next cook.
Putting wood to work

So here's how to take advantage of
this info.
Don't soak the wood. It does no
good. Water can't penetrate it. That's
why they make boats from wood.
Read my article on soaking wood
and look at the photos for proof.
Size matters. For long cooks, chunks
of wood from golf ball to baseball size
work best. They burn more cooly, smolder and last longer, while chips and
pellets tend to combust and disappear more quickly. For short cooks, like a
steak, chicken, or fish, small chips and especially pellets work best because
they produce more smoke in a short burst.
Control oxygen. Make sure coals have plenty of oxygen. If coals are choking
for lack of oxygen, they burn incompletely and can coat your food with gray
soot. If that happens, get the meat off, rinse it, adjust the fire and put it back
on. But restrict oxygen to the wood. Too much air and it will burst into flame.
Experiment with containers for the wood. Here you can see a foil packet with
holes punched in it and a small aluminum loaf pan crimp it to restrict airflow.
You want the wood to smolder, which is the point just before ignition when it
produces smoke but hasn't yet burst into flame. The difference is oxygen. So if
your wood bursts into flames, next time wrap it in foil and poke a few holes in
the foil to limit the oxygen supply.
Use cold meat. As described above,
smoke is attracted to cold meat. Do
not let the meat come to room temp.
Besides, it takes forever for meat
to come to room temp.
Use a spice rub. Rough up the
surface with a spice rub, a layer of
spices and herbs to reduce the
boundary layer.
Keep the meat moist. Use water pans in your smoker. They add water to the
atmosphere, but more importantly the water condenses on the meat's surface.
You can also do this manually by spritzing the meat with a spray bottle you
can buy in a drug store. A mop or basting brush will just wash off your spice
rub. You can use apple juice if you wish, but it adds very little to the flavor in
comparison to the rub and sauce. You can use cranberry or pomegranate for
color. But really, all you need is water. And don't worry, opening the cooker
every 30 minutes to spritz will not slow the cooking process
measurably. This is another myth Blonder has debunked. Click the link.
Add humidity to the atmosphere with a water pan in the smoker. And don't
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bother putting juice or beer in there.
Which wood?
Cured (dried) hardwoods with low sap are the best for barbecue, especially
fruit and nut woods. When dry they produce the best smoke. They all have
slightly different flavors, and it is impossible to describe them.
To make things complicated, there are different kinds of each wood. For
example, there's shagbark hickory, scrub hickory, pignut hickory, and red
hickory. The climate the tree is grown in can impact flavor. Texas oak tastes
different than Michigan oak. Furthermore, the amount of bark and can
significantly impact flavor, far more than the type of tree you pick. How long it
has dried and the percent water left in the wood impacts flavor and aroma.
The internet is full of guides attempting to describe the flavors of different
woods. They remind me of the florid descriptions wine lovers use. I don't find
these wood descriptions very useful. Think about it. Apple might taste one way
on pork, but will taste entirely different on beef or turkey. It's like visualizing
the color red. No problem. But when you mix it with yellow, it is vastly
different, and very different from when you mix it with blue. That said, I can
often tell the wood by the smell, but rarely can I guess it by the taste. To
make matters worse, there is no guarantee that the wood in the bag is the
wood on the label. Coffee, olive oil, and fish markets are regularly rocked by
scandals of fraudulent labeling.
Here's the best I can do based on the woods I have used. And remember, I
have judged food and wine around the world and won wine tasting
championships, and I would love nothing more than to tell you that a
particular wood has "nuances of spice with an undertone of mushrooms". I just
can't do it.
Mild (best for foods that are not heavily seasoned or sauced). Alder,
apple, cherry, grape, maple, mulberry, orange, and peach.
Strong (best for strong flavored foods with lots of spice and/or
sauce). Hickory, mesquite, oak, pecan, walnut, and whiskey barrel.
I avoid mesquite. It can be harsh, bitter, and pungent. Hickory is the tried and
true mate for pork, but some people find it too aggressive and occasionally it
can taste bitter. Fruit woods tend to impart a sweetness.
Then there are the exotic woods that I haven't tried yet: Citrus, dried citrus
peels, pistachio wood, corn cobs, nut shells, coconut shells, mango, and even
mahogany.
The choice of wood is crucial when you are using wood for both heat and
flavor, if it is your fuel. It is not very important when you are throwing a few
chips and chunks into a pile of charcoal or onto a gas grill or even on a pellet
smoker.
Bottom line: Stop obsessing over which wood to use. Pick one and stick with it
for a whiole. The quality of the meat, the spice rub, the cooking temp, the
meat temp, and the sauce impact the final taste profile far more than the
name on a bag of wood. Once you have everything else under control, then
you can try different woods.
Bad wood. Whatever you do, never use wood from conifers such as pine, fir,
cyprus, spruce, redwood, or cedar. They contain too much sap and that sap
contains turpines, and they can make the meat taste funny. Some have been
known to make people sick. Yes, I know that cedar planks are popular for
cooking salmon on, but I don't know anyone who burns cedar as a smoke
wood. I have also heard that elm, eucalyptus, sassafras, sycamore, and liquid
amber trees impart a bad flavor. Oleander smoke is poisonous, and I am told
laurel is too.
Never use lumber scraps. Some lumber is treated with chemicals that are
poisonous. Never use wood that has been painted. If you have branches fall
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from trees, make sure they are not moldy. By the way, that's why I don't use
lump charcoal. You can see lumber scraps in there and it makes me wonder
how careful they are to prevent treated lumber from getting in there.
Never use wood that is moldy.
Use air dried wood. Green woods have more sap, burn irregularly, and
impart different flavors than dried wood. Air dried wood is slightly wetter than
kiln dries, and the water provides steam that makes the droplets larger and
stickier. Kiln dried tends to taste smokier, and when wood is the heat source,
getting enough smoke is rarely a problem, so top pitmasters prefer air dried.
How wood is dried doesn't matter if you are burning charcoal, gas, or pellets.
Bark or no bark? Some wood has more bark than others and that can impact
the flavor. Some folks say you should remove the bark. I don't bother, but
there may be something to this.
Make the wood smolder. You don't want the wood to catch on fire and go
through rapid combustion. You want the wood to smolder. The way to do this
is to starve it by limiting oxygen. If your wood is constantly breaking into
flames, wrap it losely in foil and poke holes in the foil.
What does Meathead prefer? If I was on a dessert island I would want a
bag of apple chunks and a bag of small apple chips or pellets. I would use the
chunks for steady slow release smoke, and the chips or pellets for quick
smoke.
Add wood early. Meat soaks up more wood flavor at the start of the cook,
and the colder the meat the more smoke it absorbs.
Where to get it? There are a number of barbecue specialty stores opening
around the country and there may be one near you. Most hardware stores
carry only hickory or mesquite, but a few carry expanded barbecue supplies
and a selection of woods. Watch the newspaper for ads from stores promoting
a lot of grills. Then give them a call. Another option is to go to an orchard and
ask if you can have some dead limbs. Also there are a number of places to buy
wood on the net. Click here for contact info for online wood suppliers.
How much is enough? It is best to weigh the amount of wood you use so
you can increase or decrease it as you wish in future cooks. The amount you
need will vary depending on your preferences, how tight your cooker is, they
type of fuel, the thickness of the meat, and if you use chunks, chips, or pellets.
Pellets are especially good for measured amounts.
Here's where to start your experiments: On charcoal, use no more than 8
ounces by weight of wood for ribs. Use no more than 16 ounces for pulled pork
and brisket, and no more than 4 ounces for turkey and chicken. Add it in
doses. Put on about two ounces when you put on the meat and add another
two ounces when you can no longer see smoke. On gas grills, double the
amount.
Take notes! Measure the wood and write it down so you can add more or less
the next time you cook. Use less than you think you need. Keep records of
your experiments on a cooking log.
Click here to see the original unedited data from Blonder's experiments.
This page was revised 1/7/2013
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