Smoking Meat and Sausage - Here Are the Kinds of Wood to Use

One of the things that people often overlook when they start smoking meat and sausage is how much of the flavor in their final product is due to the species of wood they use to generate the smoke. It can be a significant factor.

The characteristic tastes and aromas generated by wood smoke are determined by the amounts and kinds of certain sugar, protein, and phenolic compound molecules present in the wood species being burned. Different species have different levels and combinations of those molecules, so they produce different and distinctive flavors.

It's important for us to know ahead of time what to expect so we can dial in just the flavors we want.

Smoking wood species are generally categorized as producing either strong or mild flavored smoke.

Strong Tasting Smoke Species

- Hickory is probably the best known wood for smoking. It has quite a strong (almost acrid) taste so be careful not to over smoke with it. Hickory is especially good with beef and lamb because of the assertive flavor of the meat.
- Mesquite is one of the strongest flavored wood species, and is used a lot for BBQ. Again, it can also be good for smoking sausage made from stronger flavored meats like lamb, beef and venison if you take care not to over do it.
- Acacia smoke is much like mesquite in flavor, but not quite as strong.
- Oak gives off strong but mellow smoke. It is a good all-round smoking wood and works well with most meat, including poultry and pork.
- Walnut Both black and English walnut give off heavy flavored smoke. Used alone they can become over-bearing, so it's usually best to use them mixed with a lighter smoking species.

Milder Tasting Smoke Species

- Maple has an especially sweet flavored smoke that works well with lighter meats like pork and poultry.
- Ash is a fast burning wood with lightly flavored smoke. Ash chips and sawdust need to be well soaked before using them in the smoker so they produce an ample quantity of smoke.
- Birch is very much like maple in its flavor and is a another good all-round meat and sausage smoking species.
- Alder is a very abundant species in the Pacific Northwest. The smoke is light and flavorful and has been the traditional wood used to smoke salmon. It is a good general purpose wood for smoking almost any kind of meat.
- Pecan has a flavor typical of other nut woods like hickory and walnut but is far milder. It's a good choice for light meat like poultry.

Fruit Woods

- All fruitwoods are similar in the flavor of their smoke, which tends to be light and slightly sweet. Fruitwood is almost always a good choice for smoking. Some of the better and more common species to use are: Apple
- Cherry
- Apricot
- Peach
- Pear
- Plum

Wood Species to Avoid

- There are certainly wood species to avoid too, as these can impart a resin or turpentine-like taste to your meat. They are almost all softwood species, and include, but aren't limited to: Pine
- Fir
- Cedar
- Cyprus
- You will also have less than sterling results with: Sassafras
- Sycamore
- Elm
- Eucalyptus

Give a bit of thought to the wood species you will use before you start the actual smoking process, and your results will be much more predictable and repeatable.

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