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I bought some apple wood yesterday at local hardware store. I' doing a butt today and when I got out my wood that came with my smokette and compare size seems like the apple is 1/2 the weight as the hickory. Is this a problem? Should I use the wood by weight or try to eyeball the correct size? I also wondered if this will produce less smoke? I tryed to look for old threads on this but had little luck.
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Use your best judgement and eyeball it. IMO, on a pork butt, if I was deciding between 3 or 4 pieces(just an example - not a recommendation) I would pick the extra piece. Apple wood will be milder than hickory all things equal. Make SURE you write it down somewhere for next time. Have fun. The worst PB I've smoked has been really good.

There's no rule against mixing woods. I like a little hickory or pecan with apple.
Pags, I'm a country boy been around seasoned wood I'm diffently not buying this.I bet the chunks that came in my box,because of different size of tree,age of tree are different that was before we had -12* temp wich drys out air witch will effect moisture content,hence smoke lenght.Mavbe not enough for us to tell,but is a small differnce in weight any different? Think about this a while!!

I think you're overthinking it. Nothing wrong with questioning tradition, but in this case it's just a couple of chunks. Besides, are you going to test your wood each time, as the humidity will vary with the seasons.

Sure the weight would matter, and the humidity (REAL wet) would just smoulder. But...

The difference between one chunk and another, given a different humidity, wouldn't really show an effect given the small wood size.

If you were burning a bunch of logs for BTU's it might and you'll put off more gray smoke (bad) than clear/blue smoke, but not in a cooker this small.

The only think I would do it get a scale and weigh them. There are different densities, but it's really more art than science, you just need to know relative amounts.

Less would be say one or two chunks
Average would be say three or four
Heavy would be more than five.

But in the end in ONLY matters the amount you need for your taste buds.

Keep notes of how much wood and how much flavor you get for your own effects.

The other variables I think are more important (meat, seasoning, sauce, etc) in the end, I don't think most people can taste the "flavor" of a particular wood.
As Smokin' says,after awhile our experience will tend to carry us thru our early concerns.

In very early days,I weighed and wrote weights on the little wood blocks with a dark pencil.

I'd cooked on lots of cookers-big and little,but thought maybe the CS was completely different. Confused

It was a kinda expensive,funny lookin' beast.

After awhile,I'd reach in the wood drawer and get a handful and go cook.

Yes,I used milder fruit woods for some things,and stronger nut woods for others.

The handfuls would vary by smaller for shorter cooks,average for average,and larger for longer.

Funny,if I checked the weights,they were close to my old notes. Big Grin

That brought me back to the more experienced cooks that try to teach me:
"Put some meat in and cook it,all those tiny details will sort themselves out".

Worked pretty well ,over these years. Wink
Now Tiger, don't be too hard on the newbies, they're just overthinking a little.

For the newbies, we actually see this quite a lot, where people come in and think there has to be more too it, or you need more info.

Trust us. Start simple, keep it smart, you're going to be doing this for years, so there's no rush to learn it all in the first month.

Shoot, I'm still learnin'
I hear your frustation. I'm learning to make sure that I do have a good baseline(KISS).Then I will have something to fall back on.I know that us Newbies usually over think things, but I would rather be thought of as stupid, then miss the chance to EAGERLY learn. I do make sure to carefully examine information provided by more experienced fellow members,because they are normally right on. Thanks again for your patience!!!

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