Wood or no Wood for PBC?

[Mark V]

The PBC does lend a certain flavor to meat since the drippings become smoke immediately. But, you can add different flavors by adding wood. You could also say that meat tastes fine without dry rub or sauce so why use them?

[Thomassen]

I only use a couple of chunks of post oak, sometimes cherry.

[kelton]

The PBC does lend a certain flavor to meat since the drippings become smoke immediately. But, you can add different flavors by adding wood. You could also say that meat tastes fine without dry rub or sauce so why use them?

yeah I don't think wood makes most meats taste funny, just when I tried veggies and shrimp. I think the wood over smokes those. It was werid, I'd have the meat come out fine, but the veggies come out with like a charcoal/chemical flavor but I knew the charcoal I was using wasn't suppose to give me that flavor. So I took the wood out and things turned out good. Let me know your experiance.

[au4stree]

I use to bury 2 chunks under my coal bed and then dump the lit coals. The past 2 cooks, I didn’t use wood and probably won’t use wood in my PBC again. It does fine without added wood. Those drippings do just find.

[TheQuietOne]

I've never tried without. I'll have to put that on my to-do list. I have scads of apple wood chunks because a friend's family own an orchard. So even after I try without I'll probably use wood because it's free and because if I believe it's better with wood, it's better.

[RustyHaines]

One small chunk well hidden to one side. My go to woods are apple or mesquite. But I have done plenty of PBC cooks with no wood and the results were great too. I purposely do not use wood when cooking a turkey . . . drippings into the charcoal are sufficient.

[Rustybaum]

I can tell a difference with a few chunks of wood (I use cherry) when smoking ribs... maybe it's just in my head, but I've never had any bad tastes because of it so it couldn't hurt...

[Alabama Smoke]

I can definitely tell a difference on my PBC as to wood. Not saying I can tell you which wood was used based on taste in all cases, but I can definitely tell if its hickory, mesquite and I believe oak. If using fruit wood such as apple or cherry then its more difficult. Here is Dixie (defined as the deep south, well south east.....go west a few hundred miles it will be mesquite) hickory is the wood of choice almost everywhere in the southeast even in professional BBQ joints. Sometimes I go with something else just for a change. I do tend to go with fruit wood for lighter smoke for fish, but foul, beef and pork....I go with hickory 80% of the time. Just the way I grew up I guess.

[HawkerXP]

I use small chunks and only during the first hour. Mostly fruit woods.

[Greygoose]

Apple wood works for me in the PBC

[andy.wpg]

Always been no wood for me. Our family absolutely loves the "naked" PBC flavours.