The beef brisket cut goes well with flavors and aromas that BBQ smoking brings. The brisket has tender and soft textures that make it the best choice for the absorption of moisture and smoke for flavor. This is the reason why it is one of the best beef cuts for a smoked BBQ party.
Here are the 7 best kinds of wood for smoking brisket:
- Oak
- Mesquite
- Hickory
- Maple
- Pecan
- Olive
- Apple
Brisket is a popular cut for barbeque meat. Most of the time it is considered a benchmark to compare the skills of BBQ and pit masters when they compete.
When it is cooked the right way, you will only find a few cuts of beef that can be better than this. The meaty fibers are in a thick fat that will melt away while it cooks. This is how brisket gets the tough yet beautiful tender texture it has.
If you want to make it right, smoke the brisket at low temperature for hours. You also must match it with the best wood for brisket to help enhance the flavors without overpowering it.
Picking the best wood to smoke brisket will show if the final product is flavorful, soft, tender, or a total flop.
For a simpler option, you can either choose oak or hickory because they are the top choices. Other smoked BBQ enthusiasts also use apple, pecan, maple, mesquite, or olive.
Oak Wood
Best Woods You Can Use for Smoking Brisket
One of the strengths of oak is its ability to produce a flavor of smoke that fantastically goes well with beef brisket. Oak had always been a popular choice of wood, partly because it is very easy to use on a smoke grill.
Oak has a potentially long burning time, which means you do not have to tend to it for hours or keep an eye on it unlike other wood chips for brisket. In addition, the flavor profile of oak is a lot more subtle than other popular woods for smoking, such as mesquite or hickory. That means matching oak with other kinds of wood produces a fuller flavor.
Recommendation: Smoak Firewood Cooking Logs
- This is a variety of white oak that gives off a lot of heat and smokes fire and smolder. Particularly white oak is a great fuel for smoking.
When you are buying good oak wood for smoking, you want the one that produces a lot of heat and smokes the fire and smolder at the same time.
This variety of white oak that comes from Smoak Firewood Cooking is the perfect choice. White oak is an excellent smoking fuel.
These have large logs. That is not a concern if you are going to use as the main smoking fuel as well. However, if you only want it as a secondary flavoring wood it is advisable to use something else. This is not a big loss because oak is better as a primary fuel than secondary.
They are sold in different sizes, which lets you to buy it in bulk or just a small pack. They also have an affordable price so you are not going to hurt your wallet if you will buy logs for smoking BBQ.
Hickory Wood
Hickory is still one of the most popular kind of wood for smoking brisket, primarily because of the nice nutty flavor it has. You can find it almost anywhere, so for smoking brisket it is an excellent fallback choice if nothing else is available. However, it is still a great wood for smoking if you choose it over others.
The flavor is oak-like, but a bit more subtle than mesquite. Using too much of it might overpower the meat with a strong bitter taste.
Try not to put too much. You can tone it down by using a little less, or mix some applewood.
Hickory has a smokey taste, but the flavor is more pungent than oak. People might choose this, but the disadvantage is the smoke that comes from it is less clean than oak.
If you want to smoke your brisket quickly, like for 3 hours maximum only, then blending hickory and oak is the best thing to do.
Recommendation: Weber Hickory Wood Chunks
If you want a mor dense flavor, you will be making the best choice with hickory.
Hickory wood is great for smoking brisket. The brisket’s tough meaty fibers can endure hickory’s strong and rich flavors, and they will be absorbed beautifully.
Weber is the best wood chips for brisket if you want a hickory flavor. It is a German brand that has been selling great BBQ grills for many years. That is why they also know a lot about great fuel for BBQ.
The Weber hickory wood chips can be used alone as the main source of fuel, but you can also match it with oak if you want it milder.
Each bag only weighs a few pounds, so you can easily buy one to test it out or buy it in bulk if you are sure already. Each chunk is three inches long, and it is solid and dependable like what you would expect from Weber.
Mesquite Wood
Mesquite is commonly used for smoking BBQ, particularly if you are preparing brisket. It is a Texan smoking staple, and there is a good reason for that. Mesquite is pungent wood with a very intense flavor. When people think of what wood to smoke brisket, mesquite is usually mentioned because of its intense flavor.
One disadvantage of using mesquite is it burns through quickly, which means you are going to need a lot if you will smoke a big brisket cut.
If you are not sure about pairing mesquite with brisket because of the intensity of its flavor, then you must mix a softer wood. For instance, you can mix apple wood so it has a softer edge without compromising a lot on the flavor.
Recommendation: Weber Mesquite Wood Chunks
Pecan Wood
This is not something that everyone uses, but pecan has a beautiful sweet and rich flavor that goes well with brisket.
If you want to lessen the sweet aroma a little, you can mix some oak to make it even. This way, the wood for brisket that you used will not be overpowering the flavor.
Recommendation: Western Premium Pecan BBQ Cooking Chunks
Maple Wood
Maple is a great wood to use for those who are new to smoking. Maple has a mild flavor that is a combination of lightly smokey and sweet taste on a brisket without overwhelming the aroma.
The good thing about Maple is that aside from it being one of the best wood chips for smoking brisket, it is also a great choice for other meats. You can use it to smoke poultry and pork.
Recommendation: J.C.s’ Smoking Maple Wood Chunks
Apple Wood
It is not a surprise that apple has a fruity and sweet flavor, but you can also use it to dilute other woods to even out their strong flavor. Apple wood is great with brisket, you can also use it for smoking ham, turkey, and chicken.
Recommendation: Camerons Products Smoking Wood Chunks
If you want a more subtle flavor with a bit of sweetness, then you should go for apple wood.
Apple wood emits thick smoke, which is great for infusing flavor into the tough textures of a brisket. It will add sweetness and a subtle fruity layer of taste.
You can use apple wood as a primary or secondary smoking fuel. It can either be the focal point of the smoke, or you can add it to oak for some sweetness.
Olive
Olive wood is not always the first thing you think of when you are going to smoke BBQ, but it deserves to be recognized. It is a milder alternative to mesquite because they have the same flavor profile, but olive wood is not as overpowering.
Aside from using for smoking brisket, it also goes well with poultry or fish.
Recommendation: CharcoalStore Olive Wood Smoking Chunks
Size to Choose
- Logs – It can have and intimidating size, but it is perfect if you have an offset smoker because of the large amount of smoke. They can be challenging to ignite, but works fantastically if you have the right smoker.
- Chips – This is what people normally use for an electric smoker or charcoal grill. They are sometimes called scraps or wood shavings because they are very small. Hence, they burn out fast, so you should only use it for small brisket cuts.
- Chunks – Chunks are also challenging to ignite, but they do not burn out quickly. These are what you must go for if you need to smoke for a long period.
These are the 7 best woods to smoke brisket for to get a very nice flavor and aroma. You can test all of them to determine which one you like best for your brisket. With the right recipe, you will surely make a delicious and tender smoked brisket.
