Smoke and Mirror Tricks  

• Jerk. Looking for a trick to add that authentic Jamaican jerk chicken taste to your meat? Authentic jerk involves pimento wood. It’s hard to find most places, but you can emulate it using a blend of oak, and mesquite (a similar hardwood like pimento). Next, create a smoker pouch filled with allspice berries and place it directly under your meat. The fragrant smoke is truly authentic as allspice berries come from the dried unripe berry of Pimenta dioica, a mid-canopy tree, also known as pimento.
• Foil smoker. Here’s a trick to help you wood-fire salmon without a smoker or cedar planks, by utilizing some aluminum foil and wood chips. Just build a small foil tray and fill it with a bed of wood chips. Set it under the grate, atop the burner or coals, to get the chips smoking. Just like a pouch in the previous chapter, this will add smoky goodness to your fish.
• Planks for the tip. Cedar planks made for grilling can be pricey at Whole Foods and other retailers. Instead, grab some untreated cedar shingles at your nearest home store. Make sure it’s only cedar (and not chemically treated), and you can snag a bundle for a fraction of the price of the planks at Williams Sonoma.
• Think local. Just like farm produce, it’s good to use what you can find around the neighborhood. Think local when choosing your smoking woods. If oak is plentiful in your neck of the woods, go with that. Here in South Carolina, pecan is plentiful.
• Getting’ Twiggy with it! Wooden skewers for kebabs can also flavor your food. Sugar cane sticks can be a sweet choice for fruit kebabs, or if you have a rosemary bush nearby, you can also snag a few green sticks and infuse your kebabs with bonus flavor. Plus, you have a baked-in garnish!
• To soak or not to soak? Many pitmasters will advise that you soak your wood chips and chunks to encourage smoldering. Others say it’s a waste of time. My trick is a nice compromise. Soak half of your chips and chunks and add both the soaked and unsoaked to the coals in equal amounts. The dry wood will smoke first and the wet will extend the total smolder time.
• Use what ya got. Wood pellets that are typically used for your wood pellet grill can also add smoke to you other grills via a smoker pouch or box. Just be careful not to over fill the box. Pellets can expand a bit when heated.
• Look out for snakes. Stretch your cook time with a snake. The “snake method” is a trick used by charcoal and kettle lovers. When viewing your grill top from overhead think about it as if it’s a clock. You’ll line up a row of charcoal briquettes around the circumference of the round charcoal pan from the top of a “clock” on the :00 around to the bottom of the hour, or around :30. Additionally, sprinkle in a generous amount of fragrant hardwood chips at all points between. Start your cook by igniting only one end of the “snake,” at the small fire starter cube shown below. You’ll enjoy a low and slow smoking heat source from start to finish. Plus, you’ll have the added benefit of a controlled safe zone above the drip pan. Last, position your lid’s vent holes above the meat for optimal smoke flow.

Grillustration: Snake Method

Wood Sticks    

If you like to go big, you likely have a big stick burner. This is typically a horizontal offset cooker with a dedicated firebox. The drier, the better. Find a local source for hickory, oak, pecan, or mesquite wood, and get smokin’. To locate a source near you, a Google search usually turns up great prices when you key in firewood. Craigslist or Facebook marketplace are also great places to purchase wood locally.

Wood Chips and Chunks  

If you are working with backyard grills, you’ll likely be working with wood chips and chunks. I find it is easy to keep these fully stocked year-round, at least in the south. Hickory is almost universally good, but you’ll be able to find cherry, oak, mesquite, and applewood at most any Walmart. I recently noticed they keep a wide selection in various sized bags during the spring and summer months. I also keep a current list of exotic wood providers on the resources page at BarbecueTricks.com.

Wood Pellet Magic

Pellet grills are one of my favorite tricks. The compressed sawdust pellets burn cleanly and efficiently. Plus, they can be found in every flavor imaginable. If you are looking for something new, try charcoal pellets. They offer some of the unique characteristics of charcoal and are made specifically for the pellet grill. Mix them with your favorite wood, and proponents claim you’ll get a better smoke ring thanks to the higher burn temperature. It’s the best of both worlds.

Pellets not only add flavor, but they are also your only heat source, so you’ll go through a lot. Expect to burn about a half a pound of pellets for every hour of smoking on your pellet grill’s lowest setting. At the highest setting of around 450°F, I’ve tracked a burn rate of over two pounds an hour. The downside is that pellets can get pricey. Look for sales at the big box stores during the start of summer. The typical price online is a buck a pound, but deals are out there. The best price I’ve ever seen (and I have been really hunting) is $15 for a 40-pound bag at Lowes on Memorial Day weekend.

Food-Grade Wood Pellets

I’ve found jaw-dropping prices on pure oak pellets at Tractor Supply. Alas, these pellets are not FDA approved for use in cooking. I have never heard an official reason. The bags say 100% all-natural pure oak. However, a rabbit hole search on the internet has me afraid of getting the bag with a stick of arsenic-laced woodshop scraps. Smoke at your own risk!

{BONUS TRICK} One preventable drawback to wood pellets is the large amount of wood dust they can shed. This dust can accumulate in your grill’s pellet hopper and be a pain to clean. Instead, seek a clean 12-inch metal soil sieve/sifter, and you can screen out the debris before you reload.

Flavors of Wood  

With barbecue wood chunks, pellets, and chips, you can find just about any “flavor” under the sun. Pitmaster blends are typically a blend of hickory and oak. You can also blend endless combinations of your favorites. Here are a few of the best types of wood, and their attributes, for cooking, including a few new VERY unique special flavors of pellets.

WOOD FLAVORS

Acacia	Mesquite family; strong, good for most meats and vegetables
Alder	Delicate with a hint of sweetness; good for fish, pork, poultry, light-meat game birds; great with salmon
Almond	Nutty & sweet smoke flavor, light ash; good with all meats
Apple	Slightly sweet, but dense, fruity smoke flavor; good for beef, poultry, game birds, pork and ham
Apricot	Milder flavor and sweeter than hickory; good on most meats
Ash	Fast burning, light, distinctive flavor; good with fish and red meat
Birch	Medium hardwood with a flavor like maple; good with pork and poultry
Cedar	Used for plank cooking. Typically for salmon or shrimp; try shingles, too
Cherry	Slightly sweet, fruity smoke flavor; good with all meats
Cottonwood	Very subtle in flavor; good on most meats
Grape Vines	Aromatic, similar to fruit woods; good with all meats
Grapefruit	Medium smoke flavor with a hint of fruitiness; excellent with beef, pork, and poultry
Hickory	Pungent, smoky, bacon-like flavor, the most common wood used; good for all smoking, especially pork and ribs – most popular grilling wood in the south
Lemon	Medium smoke flavor with a hint of fruitiness; excellent with beef, pork, and poultry
Lilac	Very light, subtle with a hint of floral; good with seafood and lamb
Maple	Mild smoky, somewhat sweet flavor; good with pork, poultry, cheese, vegetables, and small game birds
Mesquite	Strong, earthy flavor, most meats, especially beef, most vegetables – most popular grilling wood in Texas
Mulberry	Sweet smell and will remind you of Applewood; great for beef, poultry, game birds, pork, and ham
Nectarine	The flavor is milder and sweeter than hickory; good on most meats
Oak	The second most popular wood, heavy smoke flavor, red oak is considered the best by many pitmasters; good with red meat, pork, fish, and heavy game
Orange	Medium smoke flavor with a hint of fruitiness; excellent with beef, pork, and poultry
Peach	Slightly sweet, woodsy flavor; good on most meats
Pear	Slightly sweet, woodsy flavor; poultry, tasty with game birds and pork
Pecan	More like oak than hickory, and not quite as strong; good for most meats, and great for nuts
Pimento	Spicy, similar to mesquite, the wood of the allspice (pimento) berry, which is the choice wood for jerk chicken
Plum	Milder and sweeter than hickory; good on most meats
Post Oak	This Texas oak gets its name from the wood that is used as the popular choice for fence posts. It is, in fact, a distinct species of oak. Very similar to white oak
Walnut	Very heavy smoke flavor, usually mixed with a lighter wood, like Pecan or Apple, and can be bitter if used alone or not aged; good for red meats and game

Blends and Novelty Mixes

I’ve been surprised by the speed at which companies are creating new flavors and blend options, specifically for wood pellet grills. Here are a few unique pellet options if you like to get more adventurous in your barbecue.

• How ‘Bout Them Apples. CookinPellets.com offers a wide variety of the basics as well a Black Cherry, and a popular Apple Mash flavor. They’ll even ship you a pallet of 15 bags. That is, if your spouse will be okay with parking in the driveway.
• Got Game? Traeger has branched out beyond hardware with flavored pellets ranging from an herbaceous Big Game blend for venison, beef, and game, to a rosemary-infused Turkey blend. I like their Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy, featuring lemon zest.
• All Jacked Up. Last, Jack Daniels and others sell powerful pellets and wood chips and oak blends made from recycled whiskey barrels. Big meats call for big flavors. I once did a tour of Jack Daniels in Lynchburg, Tennessee, and I highly recommend it. It’s like the Willy Wonka factory tour for whisky lovers.