British BBQ Society Forums

Hi,

Last question of the day ( promise ) I have seasoned oak and ash for my first smoke on Wednesday, but as I am doing pulled pork and ribs and thought of mixing in some apple wood, the problem is I have no seasoned apple wood.

I have a apple tree in my garden which I could easily chop a few good size chunks off but it will be very green and moist?

Would this be too wet and no smoke clean or will it be ok if my coals are hot and white?

Thanks again for helping a newbie out!

You need to be careful, un-seasoned wood creates more smoke which can ruin your food


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As above, Apple will dry out quickly, especially if you place a few chunks in the airing cupboard etc... You only want to use a couple of chunks of any wood during a smoke, most people over smoke their first couple of cooks and put their friends and family off for quite a while. I'd pick one of the dry woods you have and use two or three golf ball sized chunks, the oak will be stronger than the ash. I'll never forget the look on my family's faces when I served them "ashtray ribs", took a long time to recover that one!!

Hi ace, as far as I understand it you need seasoned wood or there is too much sap and resin and this can make things bitter.

I'm not sure I'd agree with only using a few golfball sized chunks, that's not very much at all. This is what my fire basket looks like when I'm doing pulled pork or another long smoke

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/ii5 ... kqlbcm.jpg

But I wouldn't use green wood personally, though I've heard of some people using it

In the end it must be personal taste. With two golf ball sized chunks on a 10h pulled pork, my guests usually comment that they say that they like the slight smokey flavour. I think more and they'd be overwhelmed.

Mind you, if the meat itself is strongly flavoured, I would probably use a bit more wood.

I think two golf ball sized chunks is too small as well. I tend to use 4-6 fist size chunks in the cook, and only in the first 4 hrs, after that I dont use the wood.

JEC wrote:As above, Apple will dry out quickly, especially if you place a few chunks in the airing cupboard etc... You only want to use a couple of chunks of any wood during a smoke, most people over smoke their first couple of cooks and put their friends and family off for quite a while. I'd pick one of the dry woods you have and use two or three golf ball sized chunks, the oak will be stronger than the ash. I'll never forget the look on my family's faces when I served them "ashtray ribs", took a long time to recover that one!!

Should have been tennis ball sized pieces

The fruit sap issues is an odd one, some in the states want to sap others don't. I left me apple outside for a couple of weeks before using it and it was perfect.

Now on the amount I would never use as much as Dave, i only want one piece of wood burning at a time when I use the minion method which gives ample smoke. Each piece is between a golf ball and tennis ball (although never that big) and set them up to burn one after the other

I wouldn't use that much in the basket in my Pro Q, however in the UDS that gave about 8 hours of thin, blue smoke