WOOD if only I knew

[holehogg]

My custom home built vertical gas smoker will be making the grand entrance or fitment to my food rig tomorrow and it will be towed home to start my new smoking ventuperience.
Much about wood and the meat they pair with is discussed on this site but sadly not much, if any helps me ‘cause we have different woods. We are spoil't with choices in the different parts of the country but I haven’t had much success in finding what type of the available woods will work best for smoking. Here in Port Elizabeth I can buy a variety of woods at about 20 different suppliers within a ½ mile radius from the local café, petrol station (gas station) to supermarkets and plenty vendors on the street sidewalks. South African BRAAI’ers generally use wood as a source of fuel and as strange as it might seem some will start the burn with wood and then add charcoal after - kind of like a "reverse sear wood’nt you think". This is mainly because some of the woods do not hold their heat as well as others. When live fire braaiing I mainly use the more expensive Namibian Hardwood (from the Namibian dessert) that burns for a long time. Another popular wood is ROOIKRANS which is an alien from Australia that has overtaken the coastal area and a real pest. This is the wood I have used in the 2 experimental smokes I have under the belt. The results were good as far as my inexperienced / unpracticed taste buds go and the sample critics were equally pleased. Bags of Citrus wood is in abundance these parts as we have massive farm lands of oranges, lemons and naartjies surrounding Port Elizabeth. I have burnt this wood while braaiing but it wasn’t the best long burning wood and cannot honestly say it had any different flavour on the live fire versus the other woods I have used.
Has anyone any experience or advice regarding the use of Citrus wood and what meat would be compatible with it?
I will be doing test cooks with some of the available woods to see if there is any noticeable difference.
BTW all the woods sold are used for braaiing.

[kmhfive]

Wow! It’s really great to read of your experiences getting BBQ going! I have used a variety of hardwoods for smoking, but never citrus. I will look for long-burning hardwoods for my pellet smoker since that’s the fuel source, but when I use my charcoal-fired Weber kettle, I’ll experiment with various chunks to see what flavor they add. In that case, I only expect the flavor-wood to smoke for the first-part of the cook. Maybe an hour or two.

[richinlbrg]

Just thinking out loud, and with no citrus burning experience, I would think it might pair with fish and poultry.
Anxious to hear of your experience!

[holehogg]

richinlbrg when we braai in this part of the world it is rarely fish. Citrus is becoming ever more popular to use whatever is being cooked. will be keeping detailed records of all my smokes while i learn and grow in the art.

[RonB]

I used to do a lot of woodworking, and used some exotic hardwoods.* Some are toxic. Although it's been 30 years since I have had a shop, I do remember having to wear a respirator when working with some woods. So if you are thinking of trying something new, you might want to check with your BBQing friends and/or google the wood to see if it's safe when burned.

* Some woods that are local to your are considered exotic in the US.

[holehogg]

Thanks Guy's but fear not - all the braai woods sold are not toxic.
I have a feeling the ROOIKRANS is similar to mesquite. Have checked out the link from this site to toxic woods and the only SA wood that features on the list is from Knysna where they grow a wide variety of different exotic woods mainly for industry and export.