That moment when

[zwiller]

you find that one wood that gives you the results you've been looking for. Been smoking butts a few weeks for upcoming grad party and tried a lot of things. Ran my old standby apple a few times, but just didn't do it for me anymore. Apple/hickory mix was better but still not it. Straight hickory was as many say "too bacony". Yesterday was a toss up between pitmasters blend and oak. Decided on oak. Nothing special out of the gate. First tray went too fast and needed a reload around 9 hours. Decided to add the chip loader and throttle it down a bit and proceeded to do my chores. A few hours later and there it was... Perfect TBS and THE SMELL. That's the one! Happy I found the wood but man these butt smokes take forever. Ran 8lbs hot and fast and still was 15.5hours... Another note to self, do not break a butt down at 1AM or else the whole house will reek of PP for hours.

 

[joedube70]

Glad you found your flavor profile!
As we all know meat is done when it is done!

 

[SmokinAl]

I use only oak & hickory, cause it's all over the place down here & cheap.
I like the flavor they both impart.
As said above, sometimes butts can be stubborn.
Al

 

[RiversideSm0ker]

For me that magic smoke is pecan. I've tried a lot of different woods for smoke flavor and none of them have the unique flavor profile that I get from pecan. Now I have taken to mixing it with some other woods to see how the flavor changes and I like all of the combos that I have tried. Pecan is always the dominate wood but I add a bit of cherry or hickory or even mesquite from time to time. Mesquite is a bit overpowering so I have relegated that to special beef cooks or shrimp. Dude, it's really awesome that you found what you were looking for. Now you just have to work on some other aspect of your smoking game moving forward. Good job.

George

 

[zwiller]

Yes, wife always says: it is what it is. From a technical standpoint, I am fairly confident that the injection I do is adding time and that makes sense. Adds weight, more thermal mass, and phosphate is keeping the moisture in. I need to measure the final product once cause I swear I have very little loss compared to figures I see posted of things like 40-50%. I bet I am at 10-20% tops.

I actually got the oak idea from you Al. Oak (white especially) is plentiful here and not really a glamorous wood so it was lower on the list of things to try. I have seriously improved my PP game with smoking butts regularly for weeks. I add a little tweak here and there.

Just bought some pecan and need to try it. Everyone will have their own preferences and each protein is different too. IE Dry rubbed drums on pitmasters blend is a keeper. Mesquite and barbacoa is another. To me, the oak has this vanilla note that really just zaps the gaminess or oink as my wife would say.

 

[gmc2003]

I use mostly hickory and apple wood - with the occasional sugar maple added into the mix.

Chris

 

[heatman]

Everyone has different taste. For me on Pork and Beef I like straight Hickory. I think it's too strong for poultry so I go to apple and cherry

 

[TomKnollRFV]

I've experimented with a few kinds of wood and blends now. I think I'm broken because I can't really taste the difference in flavour profile my self. It's smoked or not smoked to me. Others can taste it, the only one I dislike is Mesquite. I've used chips and pellets for mesquite, each time it ends up looking like way to much smoke. But Now Oak is on my list of pellets to acquire, or chips, some thing :)