A buddy brought me a wheelbarrow load of Hickory, 600+ miles. It does grow around here but I don't think I have any on our place. He's a fellow "smoker" guy. This was after I almost splintered it. (there's a tiny bit of cherry on the left of the bucket) This was after chunking it in the miter box and carefully packaging it for future enjoyment. With just a half dozen or so chunks in the Komado style cooker I should be good until he comes back next summer. Im only a few years into smoking and have not really explored different wood's added flavor, but for the last 11 years all of out "outdoor" cooking has been on an open flame. There I'm thinking that it's not so long of a cook and have had some delicious meat cooked on even lumber scraps and the wood type is less important.
I use charcoal in my smoker, with various woods for smoke. I use 75% fruit wood, and 25% hickory. That's usually 4 chunks in total.
Yes, I use lump charcoal with a few seasoning/smoke sticks buried in the pile. Yesterday I did a pork butt and I was a little shy on lump so I added some brickettes, what a cluster xxxx. Didn't realize how hot that chit burns. I had a heck of a babysitting project maintaining temps until they burned off.
If I get in a similar pinch, I’ll let the briquettes temper down in either the charcoal chimney or a stainless fry basket that I recycled from a neighbor’s dump run.
With my access to Apple over the past 10yrs, it’s been my go to wood for smoking. The only hickory I get is shagbark and I’m not sure how that would do.
Nice tidy piles there fuelrod. Don’t have hickory here myself so various trips to the hardware store has these in supply but not often do I need to. Apple and cherry are pretty plentiful here for the matter. Do you have oak? I do but not often do I smoke with it, flavor is stronger than I am able to tolerate so a little goes a long way. Just like you did there, I often cut my plum and apple to those sizes if I can with the miter saw. The more twisty they get and I back off. A band saw would be more settling for the cuts, makes it a lot easier when you have smaller chunks to add to the fire and not over do it. I made the mistakes by perfectly cooking a pork shoulder but by smoke flavor it was quite intense. Hope you find more smoking sources for your bbq, the scrounges would be a small tree here and there but worth it if you want it eating your cookies!
Horkn might know this info, he sure does prefer it in his stove on cold nights but the more we know right?
Shagbark hickory is great burning wood. For smoking though, it does give a bit of a heavier smoke flavor to whatever you are smoking. I actually prefer apple or cherry for what I smoke most, which is venison jerky. Now I image some types of meats and cuts would do well from shagbark hickory smoke.
