Smoking Meat (5 page)

Gas

Propane and natural gas are both excellent fuels for smoking meat. Both burn very cleanly and are very easy to acquire. Propane can be purchased in exchangeable tanks at gas stations, feed stores, and retailers like Walmart—or perhaps, like me, you’ve got a 500-gallon propane tank in the backyard to which you can hook up directly.

In most parts of the United States and elsewhere, natural gas is piped directly to individual homes. An outside connection can easily be established by someone certified to work with natural gas lines; this will ensure you always have a ready supply of fuel available.

I don’t use natural gas to fuel my smokers, so I can’t comment on the gas usage of these models; however, based on my personal data, you should get about 30 hours of use from a 20-pound (5-gallon) propane cylinder.

Wood

Meat smoked with wood, and wood only, is unlike anything you have ever tasted. If you have the option of using all wood, consider yourself very lucky. Not everybody has the luxury of using only wood in their smokers, for some of the following reasons:

• Many smokers are too small and are not designed to be used with all wood.
  
• Wood may be unavailable, too expensive, or difficult to transport.
  
• Your neighborhood or complex may not permit the storage of wood and/or open fires.
  

These challenges aside, wood-fired smokers are well worth the time and money you’ll invest.

Woods for smoking

The wood that is available to you depends on where you live. The general rule is that if a tree bears a nut or a fruit and is a hardwood, its wood can be safely used for smoking (though this doesn’t guarantee that you’ll like the flavor it provides, or that it will complement the meat you are smoking).

I find myself using a lot of cherry these days—on almost everything—so that could possibly be my all-time favorite wood for smoking. My preferred woods for smoking are:

• cherry
  
• mesquite
  
• oak
  
• pecan
  

Cherry (left) and Pecan (right)

Apricot (left) and Oak (right)

Below is a list of some of the woods I have used for smoking, with my notes. I highly recommend that you make your own notes on each wood you try so you can remember what type of meat you used it with and whether or not you liked the flavor it imparted.

woods for smoking

OTHER WOODS THAT ARE GOOD FOR SMOKING

• Acacia
  
• Almond
  
• Ash
  
• Bay
  
• Beech
  
• Birch
  
• Black cherry
  
• Butternut
  
• Chestnut
  
• Cottonwood
  
• Crab apple
  
• Fig
  
• Grapefruit
  
• Grapevine
  
• Guava
  
• Hackberry
  
• Lemon
  
• Lilac
  
• Mulberry
  
• Nectarine
  
• Pear
  
• Persimmon
  
• Pimento
  
• Willow
  

I’m not an authority, but conventional wisdom is that resinous woods will produce an acrid flavor and could make you ill. If you have used resinous woods and you did not get sick, then more power to you, but I don’t plan on taking any chances on ruining meat or making someone ill.

WOODS NOT SUITABLE FOR SMOKING

The following woods are resinous and should
not
be used for smoking:

• Elm
  
• Eucalyptus
  
• Fir
  
• Liquid amber
  
• Pine
  
• Redwood
  
• Spruce
  
• Sweet gum
  
• Sycamore
  

Many people say that cedar should not be used for smoking meat, although it is used quite commonly in the form of soaked planks on which you place meat for the grill. The consensus is that a cedar plank soaked in water for many hours before use doesn’t burn up, but only smokes lightly. Based on my research, the smoke composition of a burning piece of wood does seem different than of wood that is smoking lightly on the grate above the flames of a grill. I am not a scientist and I don’t claim to be an expert on the matter, so I will leave this for you to decide. I have received e-mails from folks who use cedar in their smokers, and while I cannot argue with this, I will say that if you plan to do the same, proceed with some caution.

Let me also warn you against using woods used for construction, such as lumber scraps, railroad ties, and landscape timbers, as these are commonly treated with chemicals.

Finding wood

I am often asked about the best way to acquire wood. While I don’t have a certain answer for every area of the country, I can tell you what works for me (and I tend to have a never-ending supply of wood that rarely comes from my 10 acres of pecan trees). The icing on the cake is that most of these suggestions have the word “free” attached to them. Just keep in mind one thing: you will need to store freshly cut (i.e., “green”) wood in a dry area, such as in a barn, in a shed, or even under a tarp, to dry or “season” for four to six months before you can use it for smoking.

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS.
That’s right. Ask your friends, neighbors, and even your coworkers if they know anyone who might have some wood they don’t want or would sell for cheap. This can be a great way to let folks know you are looking, and even if you don’t find what you want right away, people will most likely remember you and contact you if it becomes available.

CRAIGSLIST, NEWSPAPER CLASSIFIEDS, AND LOCAL BUY/SELL MAGAZINE.
You’ll find folks who sell wood, and some of them may even deliver it for a small fee. Be sure to ask what kind of wood it is, where they got it, and whether it is green or seasoned. The type of wood is especially important, since you can use only hardwood. Coniferous woods like pine and spruce aren’t food-worthy and can even make you sick if you use them for smoking. If sellers act like they don’t know what kind of wood they have, consider that a red flag.

In the same vein, you can place an ad on Craigslist, in your local newspaper classifieds, or even on the bulletin board at your local grocery store. Let folks know that you’ll clean up and haul away fallen trees and limbs. You can also let them know what kind of wood you’re interested in if you’re feeling lucky.

ORCHARDS.
Orchards are great places to stop and ask for wood. You might just find yourself hauling away a truckload of the good stuff, since they seem to prune limbs constantly. If they don’t have any at the time you ask, they should be able to tell you when they will.

STOP AND ASK.
Drive around town or your neighborhood and look for downed trees, especially after storms. Knock on doors and boldly ask if you can have the wood. The worst thing someone can say is no, and that’s no skin off your back. I was just talking to my neighbor the other day, and he mentioned that beavers were making a mess of all the pecan trees around his creek. He was planning to cut all of the saplings down and burn them. To me this was a call to action, and I immediately asked if I could relieve him of this duty. Of course he happily agreed, and I’m now the proud owner of several years’ worth of pecan logs that are perfectly sized for my smoker. You know the saying: one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.

BUILDING AND MAINTAINING A FIRE

Wood Fire

Boy and Girl Scouts are really good at building fires on the fly, and while theirs is a surefire method of fire-building, lots of other methods work equally well. I am going to describe a few different ways to get the job done, and you can then choose what works best for you, or even develop your own unique method.

Until just a short while ago, I always used a technique that is very similar to the Boy/Girl Scout method: dry kindling on the bottom in a teepee fashion, paper under and around the kindling, then larger and larger pieces of wood until you have the size of fire you want. Nowadays, I tend to use several different methods depending on what I am doing and whether I am building a fire in my large wood burner, in one of my smaller units, or in the fireplace.

Boy/Girl Scout method

1. Start with a heaping handful of dry kindling; this can be slivers of wood, pine needles, or very small twigs. I can see it now: several of you are scratching your heads and wondering what a “heaping handful” is. Well, it’s such a big handful that it’s falling out of your hand.
   
2. Form the kindling into a teepee. If you’re fortunate enough to have long, dry slivers of wood, place some dry pine needles or dry grass under and around the base of the teepee. Since we aren’t out in the woods, you can also use newspaper. And if you really want to veer from the authentic method of fire-building, you can pour a little olive oil on the newspaper, which will help it to burn better and longer.
   
3. Light the kindling. Once it is burning really well, place some slightly larger sticks over the smaller kindling, maintaining the teepee form. Continue adding larger and larger pieces of wood until you have a fire that is able to produce the heat you need in your smoker.
   

Traditional method

1. Place two medium-sized (no more than 5 inches in diameter) pieces of wood parallel to each other on the bottom of the firebox, leaving about 8 inches between them.
   
2. Lay two slightly smaller pieces on top of and perpendicular to the first two. Build about four levels in this pattern, making sure the logs on each level are slightly smaller than the ones below them. This leaves an open area in the center that is about 8 inches square.
   
3. Place dry kindling, paper, and fire starters in this open central area.
   
4. Light the kindling. As it gets going, it will immediately begin working on the larger stuff, so you will get a bigger fire a little faster than with the Boy/Girl Scout method.
   

Upside-down method

This method—in which everything seems backwards—requires you to forget everything you think you know about building a fire.

1. Place four logs, each about 5 inches in diameter, on the bottom of the firebox as close to each other as possible.
   
2. On top of and perpendicular to the first layer, place four or five slightly smaller split logs very close together.
   
3. On top of the first two layers, place as many small sticks, each about 1½ inches in diameter, as will fit. The sticks should be perpendicular to the layer beneath.
   
4. Fold a section of newspaper in half and then in half again, and lay it flat on top of the wood. For a better burn, you can pour some olive oil on the paper.
   
5. Pile some very small kindling on top of the paper, then light the paper and wait for it all to happen. The paper starts burning and very quickly lights the kindling. Within just a few minutes the kindling is blazing and your job is done. I don’t know exactly why it works, but the kindling lights the wood below it, and that wood lights the next layer, and so on. This setup will burn for hours on end, unattended—happy news for anyone who wants a fire, whether that be in the smoker or in the fireplace.