- Aug 3, 2009
- 5
- 10
Greetings all. I have always loved good BBQ (especially pulled pork) and have been thinking about trying for a few years. Last weekend I bought a propane fired Brinkman vertical smoker. I hope to try my first smoke this weekend of a pork picnic. They happen to be on sale this week:)
I have been reading through the forum and hopefully the first smoke will go well. One of the biggest questions I have is with wood choice. The home depot I bought the smoker only had hickory and mesquite so I bought wood chunks. I also found a local Maine company who supplies wood and bought apple, oak and maple wood chips.
When I fired up the smoker to do a seasoning smoke I used the hickory chunks. It took quite a while to get what I thought was a good amount of smoke. I only soaked the chunks for around 40 minutes so maybe a longer water smoke would help.
So here come the questions. How smokey should the smoke be? Is there such a thing as too much smoke? Will the smoke get started quicker with chips rather than chunks? Is there such a thing as over soaking the chips/chunks?
The other big area of question is wood choice. Is there any benefit of mixing together wood types? Like I said I am going to do a pork picnic this weekend and my current choices are hickory, mesquite and hopefully oak, apple and maple if they arrive this week. If I were to blend some apple with say oak or hickory would the apple smoke be overpowered?
Thanks in advance for your help. If this is too detailed of a post for the roll call forum let me know and I will repost in the proper spot.
Greg
I have been reading through the forum and hopefully the first smoke will go well. One of the biggest questions I have is with wood choice. The home depot I bought the smoker only had hickory and mesquite so I bought wood chunks. I also found a local Maine company who supplies wood and bought apple, oak and maple wood chips.
When I fired up the smoker to do a seasoning smoke I used the hickory chunks. It took quite a while to get what I thought was a good amount of smoke. I only soaked the chunks for around 40 minutes so maybe a longer water smoke would help.
So here come the questions. How smokey should the smoke be? Is there such a thing as too much smoke? Will the smoke get started quicker with chips rather than chunks? Is there such a thing as over soaking the chips/chunks?
The other big area of question is wood choice. Is there any benefit of mixing together wood types? Like I said I am going to do a pork picnic this weekend and my current choices are hickory, mesquite and hopefully oak, apple and maple if they arrive this week. If I were to blend some apple with say oak or hickory would the apple smoke be overpowered?
Thanks in advance for your help. If this is too detailed of a post for the roll call forum let me know and I will repost in the proper spot.
Greg