Smoke wood with bark?


 
Jason Godard

Jason Godard

TVWBB Pro
I’ve noticed some brands of smoke wood have a lot of bark, others have almost none. My instinct is to not burn bark. What say you?
 
I use both. The wood I get from smokinlicous is from the heartwood so no bark.
The wood I get from Fruta-wood is from the limbs so it has bark.
I don't worry about it unless the bark looks funky, like mold or mildew.
Then I just do a quick burn in the chimney.
 
I've heard people say you shouldn't burn bark for various reasons but it seems they are mistaken. I agree with the two posts above.
 
I burn bark from a shag hickory during all my grilling, I have never peeled the bark off unless it was to save it for a high heat cook . not sure who/why started that myth lol. Kinda like the soak you wood before using it to smoke
 
MikeCantell said:
I burn bark from a shag hickory during all my grilling, I have never peeled the bark off unless it was to save it for a high heat cook . not sure who/why started that myth lol. Kinda like the soak you wood before using it to smoke
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I believe the "soaking the wood" thing became popular because of the growing popularity of cheap water smokers, now called bullet smokers, of several decades ago. Charbroil and Brinkmann made a lot of those. Those things didn't have a temp control, no intake control, no exhaust control. You would cool the fire and the cooker temp by throwing water soaked wood chips on it.
 
Nope I owned 1 of those, the temp was controlled by keeping water in the pan, soaking was supposed to slow down the chips from burning but it just slowed down the start of smoke, once they dried out it was no different, burying chunks in the coals or adding while cooking is the only reliable way imo. I made some great food with mine with little intervention, water and some wood chunks and bam. no need to worry about temps other than when food was done.
 
For bark I would think it would make a difference between different types of wood.
I keep several different varieties of hard wood on my California property.
A section in our wood pile just for smoker wood.
The thin barked woods such as your fruitwoods wouldn’t make much difference.
The fat oak bark is something I could never see me using.
To me it just looks like it’s filled with the bitters.

Yes I store the wood outside in the elements.
I’m not sold that that makes a big difference.
Keep it out of the mud, don’t use bad wood and it will be fine.
YMMV. This works for me.
 
Mark_E said:
I believe the "soaking the wood" thing became popular because of the growing popularity of cheap water smokers, now called bullet smokers, of several decades ago. Charbroil and Brinkmann made a lot of those. Those things didn't have a temp control, no intake control, no exhaust control. You would cool the fire and the cooker temp by throwing water soaked wood chips on it.
Click to expand...

Mark, from where did you get this information ?
 
Andy Kaminski said:
For bark I would think it would make a difference between different types of wood.
I keep several different varieties of hard wood on my California property.
A section in our wood pile just for smoker wood.
The thin barked woods such as your fruitwoods wouldn’t make much difference.
The fat oak bark is something I could never see me using.
To me it just looks like it’s filled with the bitters.

Yes I store the wood outside in the elements.
I’m not sold that that makes a big difference.
Keep it out of the mud, don’t use bad wood and it will be fine.
YMMV. This works for me.
Click to expand...
This.
I use a lot of fruit woods, almost 100%
It is split in halves and I usually burn the cut side down if I am using the performer, like for a quicker smoke cook like pork ribs.
Longer smokes in the E6, everything just gets burned and no issues with bark yet.
 
Mark... I started my bbq cooking experience back in 1977 using the "cheap water smoker" you mentioned.
Although different manufacture.
It had both intake and exhaust control.
We NEVER, I repeat NEVER used water soaked wood chips to control cooker temperature!
And I used it for 20 years (1977-1997).
This is why I question where you got your information. First hand experience vs ?
 
Okay. Like I said, the water smoker I used didn't have any intake or exhaust control whatsoever. Just wide open vents on bottom and top. So I had to use wet chips to cool the fire. Dry chips wouldn't work, they would just make matters worse. They had to be wet. It actually worked very nicely. And the smoked meats were delicious.

It looks like this:

 
Mark, in your application, I can see where the wet chips might help.
Soaking wood chips for use in smoking I believe started as an attempt to delay the ignition of said chips.
 
If you feel like you need to take the bark off and have the time, knock yourself out. I don't bother. I use a lot of pecan an it will sometimes naturally fall off at some point.
 
if it is loose and easy to remove I will otherwise it goes into the fire , I recently purchased some premium kiln dried wood to test and all bark was removed
 
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