Weight of smoking wood needed?

[SR-71 Blackbird]

Hi guys,

Me again, I did a nice smoke (3 1/2 hours) for ribs on Saturday night and I used probably 1 kg of beech wood that I had lying around. The smokey flavour on the ribs was awesome, I was soooo pleased at how they turned out. Anyway, how much do you all use for your meat and does it depend on what your cooking and how long your cooking it for?

E.g Ribs, brisket, chicken, a whole turkey etc.
If you could include weights of food and wood that would be great. e.g. 6 hour smoke with ribs, 1kg ribs and 200 grams of wood for example.

I am going to experiment with the exact weights I need for everything as I like making it a science
For the ribs I didnt have time for a full 6 hour low and slow so I grilled them for 10 mins each side and then moved the lumpwood to the other end and threw on the beech and then slow cooked them for around 3 hours at between 200-250 as it moves around quite alot.

I used 3 kg of charcoal in total but that was higher then it would have been because I was playing with the hairdryer and seeing how hot I could make the charcoal. Needless to say I stopped as the ashpan was turning orangey yellow and I didn't want to melt it!!!

Thanks guys

[JEC]

I tend to use 3 golf ball sized lumps for ribs and 3 tennis ball sized lumps for pork shoulder, brisket. Chicken is somewhere in between but to be honest I often use smoke pellets in a foil pouch for chicken

[SR-71 Blackbird]

Hi Jec,

That's very interesting, thanks for responding. I didn't realise that we needed such a small amount for the whole process, excellent.

Volume of a golf ball is roughly 40cm³ so roughly 120cm³ in total. I have some Beech I was going to us and Beech is about 0.8 grams per cm³ so I would need roughly 96grams, call it 100 grams of Beech for my first smoke.

I will give this a try with chicken on my shiny new Excel 20 this weekend and post up the results and then adjust accordingly for next time.

Anybody else measure the weight of the wood they use to smoke with or is that too geeky?

Thanks

[SR-71 Blackbird]

Hi guys,

Well I cooked my chicken on Saturday (see my new post with a question about temperature).
I used 100 grams of beech wood in the stainless steel smoker box that came with my Excel 20 and I could not really taste the smoke so more is needed next time. Maybe up it to 200 grams.

I have 450 grams of oak and apple chips too that came with the Excel so I am going to have lots of fun testing these out too!

[Swindon_Ed]

Beech has a very mild taste to it, and with chicken I find you.get more smoke taste the next day, Apple gives a good imidiate flavor so you might want to try that but stick the the same amount.

[RobinC]

Have never bothered weighing the wood. As Dr Sweetsmoke has mentioned too many variables and personally I like to avoid making the whole process too much of a science, feels like cooking by numbers then.

I tend to measure the wood in terms of number and/or sizes of chunks, type of wood, food being cooked and how strong a smoke flavour me and my guests would like. Personal taste preference is a strong driver in this. If you are new to smoking then start with small amounts of wood (2 or 3 fistful size chunks in a smoker). It's better to be under smoked than over smoked. Experiment and find out what you like

[SR-71 Blackbird]

Yes exactly I will experiment and see what I/friends/family like. The chicken was so tender and moist but just more smoke needed so I will try again soon and hopefully taste some flavour like the ribs had when I used beech wood in my oil drum grill.