Wood and taste on poultry


 
J

John Ley

New member
Been smoking using my 18" WSM for about 8 years now and I tried my first whole turkey this year for Thanksgiving. Turned out great. But one thing I noticed was despite using just apple wood (about 3 baseball sized chunks) I couldn't taste a predominately apple smoke flavor. Just tasted smoky. A good smoky but not much different than when I smoke brisket or pork butt using hickory. I expected with a mild meat like turkey I would really taste the difference.

Do you guys really taste the difference when you smoke the milder woods like cherry or apple, especially with poultry? Wondering if the charcoal imparts more of a smoky flavor than I realized. I am using Kingsford Hardwood since Stubbs charcoal went away.
 
Good question - I use a lot of Pecan and Hickory wood, and can generally taste the difference between the two without any issues. I wonder if the skin on your turkey may have masked or muted the finer notes of the apple wood smoke? Did you run a water pan or run dry?
 
John,
A have used apple, pecan, sugar maple, and Hickory. I nor anyone in my family liked the apple, it left two whole chickens with a bitter almost sour taste. I tried another batch of apple with the same results. Now this does not go over well at the local bbq shop, they say we are apply country how can you not like it. At this point I am like John and primarily use only Hickory and pecan. I was out of Pecan until right before Thanksgiving and my BBQ shop called and said they got some in and put some aside if I could get there that day. I was there two hours later.
When I cooked my bone in turkey breast on the WSM 14 on Thanksgiving using two chucks of Pecan. My family did not realize I got the pecan wood. My son knew from the smell of the smoke (as he likes to help me with the pit) it wasn't Hickory, then my wife and daughter both knew the first bite it was pecan over Hickory. I like pecan best, I like pecan only on poultry and a mix of Pecan and Hickory on pork and beef.

Now, I am really lucky to have a great local BBQ shop who work hard to get local (they said the pecan was from a few hours drive to get it) wood. Older or dry kiln wood may not give never as much flavor. I am not sure what you are getting to use, that may or may not have a impact. Also, there is a Harry Soo YouTube video where he uses like 6 to 8 pieces of wood in the WSM 18. There is a thread going around here about that video and is that to many pieces of wood. I use 2 to 3 chucks for every cook with my WSM 14 and my BBQ shop buddies think that 3 is a lot for that little guy so maybe I am going heavy on the wood to get that smoke taste and don't really realize it.
 
John K BBQ said:
Good question - I use a lot of Pecan and Hickory wood, and can generally taste the difference between the two without any issues. I wonder if the skin on your turkey may have masked or muted the finer notes of the apple wood smoke? Did you run a water pan or run dry?
Click to expand...
John, I did the pan dry since I was trying to keep the temp up to make sure the skin was crispy. Could have been that the skin "ran interference" on the apple smoke flavor. Didn't consider that. Or option three which I didn't mention which is my palate just isn't that refine. :)
 
Michael Richards said:
John,
A have used apple, pecan, sugar maple, and Hickory. I nor anyone in my family liked the apple, it left two whole chickens with a bitter almost sour taste. I tried another batch of apple with the same results. Now this does not go over well at the local bbq shop, they say we are apply country how can you not like it. At this point I am like John and primarily use only Hickory and pecan. I was out of Pecan until right before Thanksgiving and my BBQ shop called and said they got some in and put some aside if I could get there that day. I was there two hours later.
When I cooked my bone in turkey breast on the WSM 14 on Thanksgiving using two chucks of Pecan. My family did not realize I got the pecan wood. My son knew from the smell of the smoke (as he likes to help me with the pit) it wasn't Hickory, then my wife and daughter both knew the first bite it was pecan over Hickory. I like pecan best, I like pecan only on poultry and a mix of Pecan and Hickory on pork and beef.

Now, I am really lucky to have a great local BBQ shop who work hard to get local (they said the pecan was from a few hours drive to get it) wood. Older or dry kiln wood may not give never as much flavor. I am not sure what you are getting to use, that may or may not have a impact. Also, there is a Harry Soo YouTube video where he uses like 6 to 8 pieces of wood in the WSM 18. There is a thread going around here about that video and is that to many pieces of wood. I use 2 to 3 chucks for every cook with my WSM 14 and my BBQ shop buddies think that 3 is a lot for that little guy so maybe I am going heavy on the wood to get that smoke taste and don't really realize it.
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Thanks Michael. Maybe I had an old/bad batch of apple wood. It was Weber brand. And your experience with Pecan is interesting to hear because I tried some once and thought it was really mellow. Maybe I should try it again. Appreciate your sharing your experiences.
 
Pecan wood definitely has a more mellow taste and works with just about anything you'd want to smoke. When I want a stronger smoke flavor, I go with hickory. As far as what brands of smoke wood to use - in general try to stay away from the nationally distributed wood chunks if you can, and buy something that is produced in your geography. Pretty much any smoke wood you buy from a store has been kiln dried, which removes a lot of moisture/smoke capacity from the wood. And then, the longer it sits between the production facility and your smoker, it dries out even more. Here's a post I did that had a lot of comments from more experienced forum members who helped me arrive at the conclusion above. https://tvwbb.com/threads/does-smoke-wood-go-stale-is-all-smoke-wood-the-same.81395/
 
My brother cut down some apple trees. I got the wood and seasoned it for 18 months. Burned it in my stick burner and frankly, I could not detect a distinct aroma when it was burning nor in the food. And when I run the stick burner, it fills up the back yard with aroma. I don't get the allure of apple wood.

I was using cherry that I bought from Ace Hardware in the WSM to cook high heat yardbird. The aroma on the patio was tremendous, I loved it. But I think the kiln dried chunks burned too fast and put off the wrong kind of smoke. The color of the chicken was dark and tasted over smoked.

I've gone to smoking yardbird on my stick burner with pecan and I'm getting much better chicken.
 
John,
Check out this other thread that is currently being added to about wood, Lynn added a great post in this thread also about wood chucks.

tvwbb.com

Best wood "chunks" from either store or online?

I only have access to store bought wood chunks. I have been reaching for the Weber branded wood chunks lately and have been finding that these are only slightly bigger than their wood "chips". This has been disappointing to say the least. Kingsford has had better sized chunks, but I wanted to...
tvwbb.com tvwbb.com
 
Many recommend cherry as the best wood for turkey and other poultry.

I tend to use peach, since that is a wood that is plentiful in my area. To keep it simple, I have reduced my wood stash down to just peach and hickory.
 
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John K BBQ said:
Pecan wood definitely has a more mellow taste and works with just about anything you'd want to smoke. When I want a stronger smoke flavor, I go with hickory. As far as what brands of smoke wood to use - in general try to stay away from the nationally distributed wood chunks if you can, and buy something that is produced in your geography. Pretty much any smoke wood you buy from a store has been kiln dried, which removes a lot of moisture/smoke capacity from the wood. And then, the longer it sits between the production facility and your smoker, it dries out even more. Here's a post I did that had a lot of comments from more experienced forum members who helped me arrive at the conclusion above. https://tvwbb.com/threads/does-smoke-wood-go-stale-is-all-smoke-wood-the-same.81395/
Click to expand...
Good info John. Appreciate it.
 
Lynn Dollar said:
My brother cut down some apple trees. I got the wood and seasoned it for 18 months. Burned it in my stick burner and frankly, I could not detect a distinct aroma when it was burning nor in the food. And when I run the stick burner, it fills up the back yard with aroma. I don't get the allure of apple wood.

I was using cherry that I bought from Ace Hardware in the WSM to cook high heat yardbird. The aroma on the patio was tremendous, I loved it. But I think the kiln dried chunks burned too fast and put off the wrong kind of smoke. The color of the chicken was dark and tasted over smoked.

I've gone to smoking yardbird on my stick burner with pecan and I'm getting much better chicken.
Click to expand...
Thanks Lynn. Who knew you had to get "boutique" wood for BBQing? I am going to check out that thread John K linked to that had the wood conversation. Thanks for sharing your experience. Very helpful.
 
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