Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction Homemade Lump Charcoal

Good question on the wood selection. There are esoteric smoking circles who do this for a living either by owning a restaurant and/or are active on the smoking competition circuit and I've read a lot of their feedback on forums. My feedback is a combination on what I've read and from personal experience:

Charcoal wood selection: Stick with dense, high BTU woods like Oak, Mesquite, Hickory, Locust, Mulberry, Osage Orange, and some cultivars of Maple are pretty dense. When in doubt, one can't go wrong with Oak of any species as it's typically readily available. Remember to used seasoned wood as it requires far less time to process into charcoal.

Smoking wood selection: This is a long list, and each wood has different applications and characteristics. It eventually comes down to what is available [free if possible] and personal taste. If I had to choose just two woods, I'd go with Hickory or Pecan and Cherry or Apple. There are some woods to avoid according to the sources I've researched: Any conifers including cedar [which is weird because I've grilled salmon on cedar planks], and ELM, EUCALYPTUS, SYCAMORE, SWEET GUM.

Here's a good list of woods and their reported characteristics. If you stick with Hickory and Oak for red meats and rely on Cherry and Apple for Poultry, Pork and Seafood you'd be covered pretty well. Once you become familiar with using these woods, you can start mixing them [Oak/Maple, Hickory/Cherry] and see if your family [or yourself] can tell any difference. Eventually you may become adventurous out and start using woods like Sassafras, Persimmon, Lilac, Mulberry, etc.