When to Add Fruit Wood Chunks to Firebok?

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learnin2smoke

Fire Starter
Original poster
Aug 13, 2014
51
12
Hi Everyone:

I am planning my first smoke this weekend, and I am planning o smoke some chicken leg quarters. I will use charcoal to start the fire but my main fuel source will be oak logs. I want to use apple chunks to help flavor the smoke and meat, but I don't know when to add them. Do I add them when I initially add the oak to get up to temp or should they be added after the ideal temp has been reached with oak and right before the meat goes in the cooking chamber? Also, how often would I continue to add the apple chunks? Every time I need to add more oak to fuel the fire or just sporadically during the cook? All help is greatly appreciated!!
 
Not sure if I am right in doing this but last time I smoked using my firebox smoker I put my apple wood chunks in when I put my hickory logs. I also checked every now and then and when the chunks were gone I threw a couple more in. Like I said not sure if I am wrong in the way I did this due to also being new to smoking but it worked for me and tasted good.

Sean
 
Yeah, I would just start the apple wood when you start the fire and add as needed. The main thing I find with fruit woods is don't add to much at one time, for some reason it seems to create a more billowy white smoke at first than other non-fruit hard woods. Maybe due to higher sugar content in the saps? (just a wild guess there...lol)
 
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