Sorry about the long post, but I am passionate about the wood I smoke with. There is just something alluring and wonderful about wood. But Imrefuse to pay for smoking wood. I have a large variety of fruit trees (Bartlett pear, Asian pear, tangerine, navel orange, Valencia orange, Key Lime, lemon, Santa rosa plum, nectarine, peach, apricot, fig, grape and pomegranate on my property. I use a lot of these woods in my smoker (landmann smokey mountain big block), but my current favorite is local Arctostaphylos glauca Ramona Manzanita from a chapparel forest in the canyon I live on (mixed with a little pomegranate and plum wood). Manzanita was a traditional wood used by the native Kumeyaay indians in my area to smoke and preserve meats, especially fish. Manzanita is very long burning hard dense wood that imparts a mild sweet smokey flavor reminiscent of a cross between cherry and apple (Manzanita after all means little apple). It really shines with pork, poultry and seafood. It is a protected plant species and thus is illegal to harvest unless it is not only dead, but completely detached from the tree and lying on the ground. With our unprecedented drought, unfortunately this is becoming easier and easier. Pomegranate wood is another recent favorite that is a very mild white wood similar in flavor to apple with just a little more bite. I've never see much written about smoking with pomeganate, but can tell you it's very nice. The fig wood is weird and has a light fluffy pith in the center. I haven't smoked with it yet and can't seem to find much information on smoking with it so if anybody knows anything please comment.
I love trying different varieties of wood to smoke with and have done a lot of small batch smokes with single varietals so I know the flavor characteristics and can formulate my blends accordingly. I also love to collect wood to smoke with on my travels and from friends around the country/world. Some of the more interesting stuff I have acquired is Hickan. This tree my friend in Arkansas claims is from a cross between a Hickory and Pecan (is that even possible?). Really wonderful sweet and flavorful and does taste a lot like a combo of hickory and pecan. I have some 200+ year old Pecan wood from trees at George Washington's home in Mt. Vernon given to him by Thomas Jefferson. I was visiting Mt. Vernon and noticed that one of the trees had been hit by a lightening strike and there was a lot of dead wood. I asked the security guard if I could take some? He of course said no, but then proceeded to tell me that he was going on break in 5 minutes and that their were bags in the gift shop. Packed as much as I could bring back in my luggage and have used it for special items like smoking chiles and onions/garlic for a hot sauce called "Rockets Red Glare". I have apple wood that I collected below Castle Gleiberg in Wettenberg Germany. The chef in the schloss where I was staying told me that the orchard itself had been in existence for at least 1000 years. Chef Witt helped me chop it up and vacuum seal it to put in my luggage. No idea how old the trees themselves were, but they looked very old and many were largely dying or dead. Very dark smooth bark and the interior is dark and very different from the apple wood I get here in so cal. I also have cherry wood from a tree planted before I was born from my grandparents home in Columbus Ohio. My Aunt used to make my favorite cherry pies from this tree and the wood is wonderful too! I just this week had a friend from Hawaii send me some Coa. Very heavy dense wood that looks kind of like Mesquite, but have no idea what it's like for smoking (he says it's what the locals use).
All that being said, you can see that a lot of my wood holds special meaning for me and is a precious resource. I'm looking to maximize my flavor and minimize my consumption. How long will various meats take on smoke? When can I stop the smoke and just use heat? Currently I have been putting smoke on my meats for around 4 hours and am happy with the results (good flavor, good smoke ring, etc.). I might like to cut this back even further, as long as it doesn't affect the final product, Any tips and info would be greatly appreciated.
At what point do I reach diminishing returns (where the meat is taking in minimal smoke)? Is this temperature dependent ? In my experience it seems cold meat takes on the most smoke. Is this correct and do you put meat on the smoker right out of the fridge?