The times I have tried using small branches and sticks in my kettles, I did not like the results. The smoke did not have the same smell I was accustomed to when burning regular sized chunks, chips or logs of the same wood. Because the smoke had an off flavor, the meat did too.
Some people like to debark their wood before they burn it. I don't think this is necessary with bigger pieces of wood for offsets, but I do see some of their logic behind this. One example of this is green hickory. The bark of green hickory contains tannin and will release tannic acid when burned and give the meat a bitter taste. Unfortunately, I can verify this from a mistake I made in my rookie days when I used green hickory in my big offset.
In my experience burning wood in my big offset, (and I burn straight wood only) I have noticed that the heartwood will have a better flavor than the wood that has bark.
I tried experimenting with heartwood vs the outer wood that contains the outer and inner barks as well as the cambium to see if there was a noticible difference on how it flavored the meat. I like to cook bacon on my kettles using cherry wood for smoke flavor. I have found the heartwood and to a lesser extent the sapwood, gives the bacon a smoother smoke flavor than the wood chunks that contain are heavy in bark and have less sapwood.
Because there is very little heartwood or even sap wood in the small size branches and limbs, I don't burn any sticks in my kettle, WSM or Offset. I use strictly split wood and make my own chunks from the split logs.
Beers,
