Choke Cherry for smoke wood


 
B

B Lauchnor

TVWBB Member
About a month ago there was a post asking about using this wood for smoking purposes. Has anyone tried it yet?

I'm asking because over the weekend I was cutting some trees down at my dad's place and one of them was a choke cherry. The wood smelled nice, like cherry. If no one has tried it I may just have to take some and dry it out and be the test dummy.

Thanks
Brad
 
Thanks Jeff, I can't tell if Bryan means that the choke cherries are bitter or the wood smoke is bitter. The choke cherries aren't too bad when fully ripe.

I've got to cut more trees down so I'm going to dice up one of the trees and dry it. I'll report back when it's dried and I can use it.
 
The information that I had from a wood chart back in 02 listed several woods as "NoT Too Use" or "Do Not Use" these woods. A few that I remember on that chart were, Choke Cherry, Black Walnut, and Sassafras. Well I know sassafras is ok to use, as well as black walnut, I just did a brisket with black walnut the other day. I would cut some of it up into the size of pieces that you use in your WSM and let them dry a month or 2. Use some on a chicken cook, since not much time or money will be lost if you don't like the flavor from the choke cherry. I have since thrown that smoke wood chart out years ago, since learning that it was inaccurate. I would def try it out. HTH
 
Thanks Bryan, I will give it a shot. I've got a 5" tree that's about 12 to 15 feet tall that I'll cut into some chunks. It'll only take a few extra minutes so no loss if it turns out nasty.

Using it on some chicken is a great idea too. Should get a good sense of what it will taste like.

P.S. Did you like the Black Walnut? I've got about a quart of Black Walnut pellets someone gave me but I haven't tried it.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by B Lauchnor:
P.S. Did you like the Black Walnut? I've got about a quart of Black Walnut pellets someone gave me but I haven't tried it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Yes I did like it. A guy I work with gave me a big log to use. He said he would bring in more for me if I liked it. I'm going to ask for some more logs.
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I finally tried some of the choke cherry that I've been drying over the summer. I loaded up the WSM with about a 1/2 ring of RO lump and Rancher briquettes (the dregs of two nearly empty bags). I threw on three pieces of choke cherry that were about 3" long and maybe 1.5" diameter. The wood was nice and dry from sitting in the sun all summer.

I cooked two ~4.5 lb chickens. I purposely left off a lot of seasoning to make sure I was getting the smoke flavor. Just a rub with olive oil then some salt and cracked pepper. The birds cooked about 5 hours at 250 or so and come out great.

The smoke flavor was good. I asked my wife and two boys to rate the smoke flavor and I got 3 consistent comments 1- light 2-sweet and 3-fruity. Overall I'd give the wood a thumbs up. I didn't notice any bitter taste at all, more importantly neither did the wife!
 
On those black walnut pellets, try them next time you grill a steak. That's all I use them for but I always have some around. Flavor's in the same family as hickory, but tends to bitter if there's too much.
 
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