Krisby1,
I have a suggestion for you. I have done a lot of smoking using my current smoker which is a 36" Meadow Creek off set and also with a Lang 48" & Lang 108 cooking a ton of Boston Butts, spare ribs, turkey's, chicken and sausage. Having said that, I have typically used just wood splits generally 12" in length.
The wood of preference for me has been apple or cherry wood because they are both mild and add a nice flavor to everything that I smoke.
I am a low and slow "Q" man and therefore I smoke all of my pork items at around 225 degrees. The Boston butts or pork shoulders I smoke generally for about 10 -12 hours.
When smoking with wood it is very important to have good wood that does not have a lot of moisture in it and you want to smoke with a good bed of hot wood coals with very little smoke coming out of your smoke stack. What you are looking for is a light blue color smoke and seeing just "HEAT WAVES' coming out of the stack is great.
Get your smoker up to temp before you place your food in and manage your air vent closely. Since your PCC is set up for it, I would look strongly at getting a DigiQ that will allow you to monitor your inside smoker temperature as well as the inside temp of what you are cooking at the same time.
Now back to the wood. There is a great company in Georgia that sells some of the best wood that I have ever used. Their web site is
www.baxtersoriginal.com.
Here is a thumb nail description of what good wood is about.
Baxter's Original Premium Smoker Wood is dried naturally. Most woods are debarked, cut to the desired specs, and placed in rack with forced air flow. This process allows the woods to retain their natural sugars - the key to great BBQ wood. We take our time to remove any debris that isn't supportive of the quest for perfect Que and we are sure that you'll taste the difference in your next cook. Thank you for your support of an American family operated business!
[h4]Naturally Dried sets us apart![/h4]
When it comes to seasoning your smoker wood, you should always look for wood that has been naturally dried. Here at Baxter's Original we place our wood on racks and force contstant airflow around the wood. This allows the wood to dry in a natural timeframe which preserves all of the natural sugars in the wood which helps to provide the most flavor. By forcing air around the wood we can ensure that the wood dries completely so you never receive wet wood.
The reason that Naturally Dried makes us different than the competition is that most providers "kiln" dry their wood. This means that they take their wood and put it in an oven and cook out all of the moisture from the wood. While this is a fast process is also forces out all of the woods natural sugars since it is not dried in a natural environment. By "kiln" drying their wood you get a reduction in flavor, I mean, come on the flavor comes from the natural sugars that are in the wood.
So by using Baxter's Original smoker wood you can be sure that you are getting the best flavor out of your wood and that always helps to make the tastiest, sweetest, and all around best BBQ anywhere.
They have a lot of commercial client testimonials that tell it like it is. You can buy a box of nice size Apple or Cherry wood chunks for a reasonable price and then use charcoal with your wood.
Just a couple of thoughts,
Pig
