Best Wood for Smoking Ribs – All You Need to Have a Great BBQ

Do you love that smoky taste on your BBQ meat? With summer approaching it’s high time to clean your grill and prepare for outdoor BBQ parties. Try and take out your cookout to a notch higher by incorporating in some wood chunks or chips while grilling.

Smoking with wood chips infuses ribs with a rich, smoky flavor and aroma. Given that different wood chunks bring out different flavors on ribs, the most important thing to do is figure out which type of wood flavor to use.

Fruit flavored wood chips such as peach, apple, and cherry elicit ribs with a subtle yet delicate flavor. For a more intense smoky flavor pecan, oak, hickory, and mesquite are the perfect chips to get ribs to acquire ‘high street’ restaurant taste that’s irresistible.

Without further ado, here are the top 5 selected wood chips that are on the market today to make your grilling season a fun and tasty experience.

Big Green Egg Smoking Chips Best Apple Wood for Smoking Ribs

Big Green Egg Smoking Chips

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First on our list comes the Big Green Egg who are highly recognized for their high-end BBQ grills. In addition to the grills, they also have their brand of wood chunks with a different flavor to give your ribs a smoky taste.

Quality of Wood

The Big Green Egg apple wood chips are the most common types of wood chips perfect for ribs. It’s made out of 100% premium natural applewood. In fact, it’s recommended for everyone who owns a gas, charcoal, or an electric grill.

The applewood has been treated to keep out pests, rot, and mold. Therefore, you have the assurance that your chips can stay for a long time without any damage as you wait for the next grilling session.

Size

Measuring approximately 180 cubic inches these large-sized apple BBQ smoking chips come in a large 2.9L bag. These are perfect size chips that burn slowly releasing rich flavor smoke over a long period of time leaving your ribs with a smooth apple scent.

However, using applewood chips one thing you have to realize is that applewood turns your smoked ribs dark brown, which is nothing to worry about. For more effective and more vibrant flavor from it, you can soak it in water for 30 minutes and then add it to your grill charcoal or sprinkle over it to give your ribs the ultimate taste experience.

Paired with herbs and your favorite BBQ sauce you can create your own recipe for a consistent taste and aroma. Made in the USA these applewood chips come with no addictive’s that can damage your health.

Western Premium BBQ Best Special Recipes Smoking Wood Chunks

Western Cherry Premium BBQ

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If you want to prepare special dishes of smoking meat, cherry wood chips are a pretty good choice. Cheery is characterized by a sweet and sour with a mild flavor that can’t alter the taste of your ribs. Consequently, it’s one of the most favorite wood chunks in the market since it works with almost everything you can grill.

Quality of Wood

Be the BBQ hero for your friends and family by giving them the robust flavor they deserve. Western Premium BBQ Cherry wood chunks are made in the USA from all-natural cherry wood and can be used on gas, electric and charcoal grills, including your personal smoker, even those larger smokers are ideal.

Plus, you can keep the chunks stored for a longer time and use them when you host a BBQ party or family gathering. Great quality chunks that are ideal for outdoor BBQ.

Size

The chunks are evenly sized measuring 549 cubic inches per package. However, the bag when full of cherry chunks weighs 7.6 lbs large enough to serve you three and more BBQ sessions depending on the size of your meat and grill or smoker.

The package includes small chips that catch fire quickly to produce smoke and ignite larger size of chunks. For a great flavor, the big chunks of cherry wood burn slowly while producing rich flavorful smoke and aroma allowing your ribs to cook perfectly and longer.

The instructions on the package advise against soaking them, but you can soak if you prefer your meat milder.

Based on customer reviews, adding a handful of cherry chunks all through your smoking process makes your ribs achieve a mild taste desired. To cook your ribs evenly, spread the wood chunks uniformly on the grill or smoker, then close the lid and let it absorbs that sweet, smoky cherry flavor.

Camerons Products Smoking Wood Best Professional Chef Smoking Wood Chunks

Camerons Products Smoking Oak Wood

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Introducing Oak wood chunks from, Camerons Products is the leader of smoking products for home and professional use. Camerons oak can be used basically anywhere if you wish for outdoor grilling or indoors is up to you. Oak is widely used by professionals in commercial smoking for a wide range of meat products mainly sausages

Quality of wood

Oak is one of the most popular wood for smoking you can’t miss its flavor. All-natural white oak hardwood, wood chunks are kiln dried and cut into small chunks of wood.

They create rich smoky flavor when used with beef, pork, game, and poultry. Being cut out of raw oak timber, they’re the best quality of oak wood chunks that stand out in all Cameron’s products.

Size

Cut with precision this Cameron’s wood chunk is not small nor large but about the desired size for your BBQ. However, because they are combinations of natural oak wood their wood density varies thereby affecting the size of the bag. When filled with wood chunks the bag weighs approximately 10 pounds pretty enough wood to get your BBQ smoking.

Camerons wood chunks can be blended with cherry wood which is another mild hardwood to give your ribs a smoky flavor.

For best performance and rich, delicious smoking flavor, it is recommended you soak them for at least 20 minutes then add them to your hot charcoal grill.

Oklahoma Joe’s Best for Smoking Wood Logs for Larger BBQ

Oklahoma Joe’s Hickory Wood

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This mini wood log is worth your dime for those who love smoking. They are mainly suitable for large BBQ applications or when you want your meat to smoke for more extended periods. Hickory creates lengthy burn which the meat absorbs to get great flavor.

Quality of wood

Dried wood products of Hickory. All-natural is an excellent quality of wood logs to smoke a variety of meat products. With no additives, these wood logs cut from the South produce a delicious smoky flavor.

You can use this Oklahoma Joe’s mini-log to smoke your ribs on a smoker or charcoal grills. Hickory wood adds taste to your ribs with a strong sweet flavor which most people say smells like bacon.

Size

Compared to all the top choices of wood chunks or chips in our list we can say this Oklahoma Joe’s mini log is large enough.
However, they are not full-sized logs either. Approximately 6″ to 8″ long this log is average in size, and mostly there are about 14 logs in the box.

Can be used to smoke ribs, brisket, sausage, and turkey. Its price is fairly affordable compared to other types of wood chunks. Essentially large logs are best suited for longer larger cooks.

Traeger Grills Best Wood Pellets for Smoking Ribs

Traeger Grills Hardwood Pellets

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When looking for pellets grill that clean burn and are environment-friendly, the Traeger grills PEL305 mesquite should be your best fit. Made from 100% hardwood with no additional fillers or additives can produce the best smoke for ribs.

Quality of Wood

The wood used to produce mesquite pellet grill is 100% virgin hardwood. This offers you a reliable consistency as no unnatural additives or fillers are added. It is the reason why this product comes with unmatched flavors.

Whether you are roasting, baking, grilling, smoking, braising, the wood-fired taste and mesquite flavor will definitely give your meal an aroma that will awe you. It’s an ideal wood for preparing meals such as seafood, wild game, beef, and poultry.

Production Process

Traeger’s mills are located in the US. They are the principal owner and operator of the mills as they oversee the process from its start to finish.

They ensure strict guidelines and instructions are implemented and adhered to so as to produce high-quality pellets with perfect smoke.

The pellets are produced using a patented process that ensures all pellets achieve the highest quality. This process utilizes a majority of base wood such as oak and alder. The wood is then treated using wood oil extracted from flavoring wood.

Pellets from Traeger are formulated using the correct amount of moisture content. This enables the pellets to achieve a clean burn that is dependable and produces perfect blue smoke.

Sustainable Sourcing

Traeger collects existing sawdust extracted from clean, green hardwood. By using sawdust, they produce high-quality pellets. Mind you, they manufacture their pellets without harvesting even one tree. It’s also designed in a special way that makes it burn cleanly and produces little ash.

Best Wood for Smoking Ribs – Buyer’s Guide

The fact that you can use just about any source of fire to smoke your food such as charcoal, wood is the most frequently used material. However, there are two different ways to use wood for smoking.

Firstly, you can smoke ribs using wood as the main source of fuel. The other way is adding wood chips or chunks to either a gas or charcoal grill that burns to add a smoky flavor.

Contents:

How to select the right wood for your smoker? – Best Wood for Smoking Ribs

There are varieties of wood available in the market that can add a distinct flavor to your smoked meat. How to select the correct type of wood is among the most commonly asked question that BBQ lovers ask.

A large percentage of these woods can be acquired both in online shops and local stores. Yet the critical aspect is to figure out which one is the best kind of wood for a particular type of meat.

Here, are some of the factors that you need to consider before you identify the perfect wood for ribs.

Size – Best Wood for Smoking Ribs

There is a quite distinct difference between wood chunks and chips. Chips are tiny pieces of wood suitable if you want just a bit of smoke flavor. Even if they are soaked in water, they will burn so quickly and create bursts of smoke.

It’s essential to check your smoker instruction to know if it’s designed to handle wood chips.

Alternatively, chunks are large pieces of smoking wood. Approximately less than 2 inches, they are great pieces for smoking over a longer period of time. Although chunks are larger than chips, logs are considerably larger wood and mostly applied on large smoking function.

Other than chunks and chips, some brands of wood are chopped into mini logs for special applications. Others like Traeger Grills PEL305 Mesquite are finely chopped into small BBQ Pellets.

Depending on the type of your smoker, the amount of meat to be smoked and own preference, go ahead select the right size.

Quality & Type of wood – Best Wood for Smoking Ribs

When looking for the right wood for smoking, besides just purchasing any hardwood with a delicious smoke, look for quality in wood.

Natural wood is pure with no signs of resins, additives, a lot of barks, and impurities that will otherwise produce harmful smoke that might affect your health.

Excellent quality of wood should give your ribs the perfect smoke to achieve a sweet, smoky flavor. Remember selecting the best quality of wood for smoking is as crucial as finding the ideal kind of wood for the food to be smoked.

Type of Flavor – Best Wood for Smoking Ribs

Getting the perfect smoky taste ribs, lamb or chicken requires the right type of wood chips. There are artificial flavors you can use to add on BBQ steak, but that will produce a completely different taste than using real natural wood.

Let’s look at different common tree flavors you can choose from.

Mesquite Wood
Mostly grows in the southwest part of the USA. It’s the strongest flavored wood recently gaining popularity for its hot burns and restaurant smoky flavor. Best used for grilling meat.

Oak Wood
Highly recommended for smoking red meat. However, it has a strong taste that is not an overpowering flavor.

Hickory Wood
It burns so clean giving your meat a mild taste with a really strong presence on the ribs. Its strong smoky flavor is best for ribs, brisket, sausages, and Turkey.

Cherry Wood
Has a sweet fruity flavor that can be used with almost every food. It’s very Smoky, might not be ideal for anyone who isn’t a fan of strong sweet flavor.

Apple Wood
Gives your food a very mild flavor with a touch of fruity sweetness. Works great with pork and poultry meat. However, when used to smoke ribs or chicken it turns color to dark brown, which is something not to worry about.

Frequently Asked Questions – Best Wood for Smoking Ribs

Should I soak my wood chunks or chips before smoking?

Depending on whether you have wood chunks or chips, you probably want them to burn for a longer time. Soaking wood has been considered a myth by many individuals despite that it’s clear it’s one of the great ways to add original flavors to your ribs.

When should I add my wood chunks or chips?

For those using charcoal grill, make sure your charcoal has died and ready to grill then you can add chips or chunks directly. Only add them when you are ready to grill or else, you’ll be wasting the smoke.

If you’re using a vertical gas smoker wait for it to reach the desired temperature, then add the wood. Note that you should wait for the smoke to develop before you start grilling.

At what temperature do wood chips smoke?

The ideal conditions for smoking are relatively low, ranging between 300 °C 400 °C. Yet this is the temperature of the burning chips or chunks, smoking is much lower. To control temperature of ribs and in general inside the smoker, I recommend to use thermometer, as example Weber iGrill.

Conclusion – Best Wood for Smoking Ribs

In the same way, you make sure that you spend a valuable amount of money on premium cuts consider the role that the kind of wood plays in smoking it. Choosing the right wood depends largely on the type of food that to be smoked and the kind of flavor you wish it to have.

Taking into account the flavor, quality of wood, and size of wood, it’s up to you to decide the perfect wood based on taste and preference. You can buy them online or in a local store but remember to get the best quality without fillers or additives.