Smoking Chicken Or Pork? Follow This Simple Rule For Better Flavor

When you first enter the wide world of BBQ, it can seem like there's a lot to take in, and that's because there is. Time, temperature, rubs that are wet and brines that are dry, and seemingly endless tips you need when cooking with a smoker can be overwhelming. With so many decisions at hand, it can be tempting to just choose one type of wood and call it a day. Bu choosing the best type of wood for the job means complementing the qualities of the meat for a more rewarding result. 

To help with this, restaurant owner, cookbook author, and seven-time world barbecue champion, Melissa Cookston, gladly provided Tasting Table with some nuggets of advice. While sharing the 14 BBQ myths you can stop believing, Cookston urged home pitmasters to think about the flavor of the meat itself and choose woods that reflect those qualities: "If you have white meats like chicken or pork you need to use lighter woods for smoking." 

White meats have a more subtle flavor than red meats such as beef or lamb. Choosing lighter woods, therefore, means you're not overpowering the qualities of the meat itself, but complementing it with an appropriately delicate wood-flavor.

Cookston provided some simple advice when it comes to weighing different types of wood for smoking specific meats, recommending that you "treat smoke like any other ingredient." This mentality can actually make matching meat to wood smoke easier, and a good rule of thumb is to consider if the product of that type of wood matches the meat. 

For example, it's well-known that pork cooked with apple is a match made in heaven, so it checks out that applewood smoke is a perfect pairing. Cookston recommended other fruit woods that go harmoniously with both poultry and pork, including cherry and peach. Even light and nutty woods like pecan can work well with both types of meat. Oak, maple, and alder also work well. 

Avoid woods with more intense smoke flavor, such as mesquite, as these can be a tad too heavy-handed for chicken or pork. "If you are cooking red meat," Cookston advised, "then you can work with a little harsher wood like hickory." Cookston's advice, applied in tandem with Aaron Franklin's method to select the perfect fire wood for your BBQ, will have you smoking like a true pitmaster in no time.