It is not just your cooking skills that can make or break your barbecue or grilling party. The flavor of the food you produce can be affected by the type of wood that you use for smoking the fish, beef chicken etc.
We recommend that you avoid lumber offcuts and other scraps. Why? OK, they are cheap but they will often have been treated with preservative or paint. When these burn, they can produce some really unpleasant tastes in the foods. Moreover, they also release chemicals called dioxins which are harmful to health. So if you use lumber scraps, it could poison your guests as sure as undercooked meats and fish could. Also, never use mould covered wood, again, you will get some undesirable flavors and possibly harmful chemicals.
So, choose fresh wood, prepared specifically for culinary use. Smoking works best on foods that take a while to cook, the smoke flavors take a time to penetrate the food. Hardwoods are by far and away the best, they burn longer and are generally more aromatic than the softwoods. In the same way that you need to choose a wine carefully in order to complement the food, you would use different woods for different meats and fish. Below we list a few of the more common hardwoods and their uses.
Hickory - used for all types of meat, it gives a pleasantly and often strong smoky flavor. It is particularly effective when used with pork, game, poultry and ribs.
Oak - common smoking wood that imparts a pleasant and subtle flavor to all kinds of meat and fish. I guess it is as close to a good all-purpose smoking wood as you get.
Cedar - A distinctive aromatic flavor that complements fish in particular.
Beech - like oak, it is widely available but gives only a delicate flavor. Another all-purpose smoking wood.
There are plenty more woods available from grill and barbecue specialist stores so why not get out there and try some.
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