Woods & Fuels for Smoking

Backyard chefs accustomed to heating with a few wood chips placed on charcoal or gas-heated lava rocks can get by with a small bag of chips purchased at the supermarket, where they are available in such flavors as hickory or mesquite or Jack Daniel’s whiskey barrels. For cold-smoking in a large smokehouse, however, the practitioner must be concerned with quantity as well as quality, and should have a large supply of suitable wood at hand. It’s best and certainly cheaper to cut your own, using whatever good hardwood is readily available to you—pecan, oak, hickory, alder, etc. It is also important to consider the size of the wood pieces, depending on availability and on your cold-smoking rig.