Using Different Woods in the Smoker

Q: ? is on swiching woods for different meats. I smoke w/hickory wood if I would go to apple wood would that mess up my cure/flavor of my smoker. I was told you should never switch woods. thanks for your help.

A: I cannot hang with that theory personally..

I enjoy mixing and matching various woods to come up with new flavor combinations. I occasionally use all mesquite or all hickory or even all apple and at other times I may use a 50/50 mix of oak and apple or other fruit wood.

The wood is what does the flavoring and the smoker is simply a modern tool to facilitate that.

The initial cure/season on the smoker is to get rid of any factory oils, smells, etc. used in the manufacturing process so that it does not influence the flavor of the meat and it also serves to seal the metal with some smoke residue to keep it from rusting.

I recommend that you use as many different types of smoking wood as possible in your smoker if you have access to it.. that is the joy of smoking.

Visit Smoking-Meat.com for hundreds of great tutorials and guides on smoking meat.

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