Best wood for smoking brisket

Uncover the most effective wooden for smoking brisket, together with differing kinds for various grills and pitmaster suggestions for choosing the proper taste.

What wooden taste is greatest for smoking brisket?

When you’ve accomplished the trimming, injecting, seasoning and resting phases, it’s time to get the smoker going.

Your gasoline supply will rely in your sort of grill or smoker and can possible embody charcoal briquets, lump charcoal or wood pellets.

Whereas the briquets, lump and pellets are comprised of wooden and can carry their very own taste qualities, you may elevate the smoky taste by including wooden chunks, chips or extra pellets.

My favourite wooden mix for smoking brisket is publish oak, pecan wooden and cherry wooden. Should you can’t discover publish oak, hickory is a pleasant various.

• Put up Oak: It is a sort of wooden that’s generally used to smoke brisket in Central Texas. It’s delicate, barely candy and burns clear. Should you can’t discover publish oak, you can too use white oak or purple oak.
• Pecan Wooden: Pecan wooden has a gentle taste profile with barely candy, nutty overtones. The nuttiness enhances the pure umami within the beef.
• Cherry Wooden: I exploit cherry wooden as a result of it imparts an awesome mahogany coloration to smoked meat. It’s a gentle wooden with a fragile, barely candy taste.
• Hickory Wooden: Hickory has a stronger taste than oak, so it needs to be used sparingly. It’s barely candy, however has deep, woody undertones.

PRO TIP: Personally, I do not use mesquite wooden after I cook dinner brisket. To me, it has a really robust, bitter taste. 

Smoking beef brisket with wooden logs

Smoking with simply wooden requires some finesse, as a result of an excessive amount of wooden may be overpowering.

I solely advocate utilizing cut up logs for smoking when you have an offset smoker.

You can begin the pit with charcoal briquets after which add 1-2 cut up logs each 45-60 minutes.

Tips on how to add wooden to a charcoal grill

Should you’re utilizing charcoal briquets or lump charcoal, I like to recommend including 2-3 chunks of hardwood wooden on high of the coals as soon as they’re ashed over and prepared.

Should you’re utilizing a ceramic cooker or drum cooker the place it’s a little bit harder to entry the charcoal basket, you may layer the wooden chunks in the midst of the coals.

Because the coals gentle, they’ll attain the wooden and can emit nice smoke taste at simply the best time.

Tips on how to add wooden to a pellet grill

When smoking with a pellet grill, the pellets themselves are made of various wooden varieties.

Search for a wooden pellet mix that features oak, pecan and cherry, or combine up totally different pellets to make your personal mix.

Should you like the flavour of charcoal (which I do), you can too discover wooden pellets that include charcoal. I’m a fan of Cowboy Charcoal & Hickory Pellets for brisket.

If you need much more smoke taste, think about including extra pellets to a smoker tube and putting that on the grill grate subsequent to the brisket.

Tips on how to add wooden to a fuel grill

Imagine it or not, you may smoke brisket on a fuel grill. They secret is to set the grill up with an oblique warmth zone.

Then, you may add dry wood chunks in a foil pouch. Don’t soak the wooden chips, as a result of that may create steam, not smoke.

What to search for when shopping for wooden

For the most effective consistency and taste, search for dry wooden logs or chunks which might be bark-free and even in dimension.

• Inexperienced wooden, or wooden that isn’t dry, produces extra creosote and a bitter taste.
• Bark can grow to be bitter because it burns, so it’s greatest to maintain it out of your pit.
• Utilizing evenly sized items helps guarantee consistency with every cook dinner. Smoke is a layer of taste. You wouldn’t season your brisket with totally different quantity of rub every time. The identical holds true for smoke. Attempt to management this component for those who can.

Extra FAQs about Brisket