Cooking Wood and Firewood by Type
November 20267 min read
In a smoker, charcoal gives you heat and a few wood chunks give you flavor, and you control them separately. Over an open fire the same wood is doing both jobs at once, so you choose the wood before you light anything. By the time you can taste it, the decision is an hour old.
Intensity is the thing to get right first. A strong wood under a delicate protein will bury it, and a mild wood under beef is a wasted fire. Match intensity first, then worry about the flavor note. The table below is sorted so you can read it either way: by what you are cooking, or by what you happen to have in the pile.
Cooking wood by type and protein
| Wood | Intensity | Flavor | Best with | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oak (white or red) | Medium-strong | Clean, round, classic woodsmoke | Beef, lamb, game, pizza | The default for a reason. Long burn, steady coal bed, hard to get wrong. If you only stock one wood, stock oak. |
| Hickory | Strong | Bacon-like, sharp, assertive | Pork, beef, ribs | Easy to overdo. Strong enough to take over a dish if the fire runs long. Good blended down with a fruit wood. |
| Mesquite | Very strong | Earthy, sharp, almost peppery | Beef, quick-seared cuts | Burns hot and fast. Fine for a steak over 8 minutes, punishing over an hour. Not a long-cook wood on an open fire. |
| Pecan | Medium | Nutty, mellow, hickory's gentler cousin | Pork, poultry, vegetables | The safest of the strong-family woods. Hard to overshoot. |
| Apple | Mild-medium | Sweet, fruity, light | Pork, poultry, fish | Forgiving. The wood to learn on if you have been burning whatever was in the pile. |
| Cherry | Mild-medium | Sweet, slightly tart, colors the meat | Pork, poultry, duck, vegetables | Gives a visible reddish color to the outside. Blends well with oak or hickory. |
| Maple | Mild | Subtly sweet, clean | Poultry, pork, vegetables, cheese | Quiet enough that it does not fight a marinade. |
| Alder | Mild | Delicate, slightly sweet | Fish, especially salmon | The traditional Pacific Northwest salmon wood. Too light for beef. |
| Walnut | Strong | Heavy, slightly bitter | Beef, game | Usually blended rather than burned alone. Can turn bitter on a long cook. |
| Ash | Medium | Neutral, clean | Anything | Burns clean and splits easily. A good neutral base to blend a flavor wood into. |
| Birch | Medium | Clean, faintly sweet | Pork, poultry | Burns fast. Fine for heat, less about flavor. |
| Beech | Medium | Mild, slightly nutty | Pork, poultry, vegetables | Burns hot and even. Common in Europe, underrated here. |
Everything in that table is sold boxed and sorted by species, and the grate it goes over is in the firewood aisle, fire pit cooking and the grates aisle.
What not to burn
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Pine, spruce, fir | Resin. Spits sparks, burns fast, and puts a turpentine taste on food. |
| Cedar | Fine as a cooking plank, bad as fuel. Too resinous to burn under food. |
| Eucalyptus | High oil content, acrid smoke. |
| Green or unseasoned wood | Smokes hard, never gets hot, and the smoke is acrid rather than sweet. The most common reason food tastes like a chimney. |
| Treated, painted, stained or pallet wood | Chemicals you do not want in food or in the air. Never, for any reason. |
| Driftwood | Salt and whatever else it absorbed. Releases harmful compounds when burned. |
| Poison ivy, oak or sumac vines | The oil carries in the smoke and is dangerous to breathe. |
Two of those deserve more than a table row, and the archive already answers them properly: what you should not burn in a firepit and how to season firewood, if yours is still green.
Match intensity before flavor
The most common mistake is reaching for an interesting wood when the job needed a quiet one. Fish under hickory tastes like hickory. Beef under maple tastes like beef. Get the weight right first and the flavor note is a refinement.
Blending woods
Most of the best results come from a base wood plus a smaller amount of a flavor wood, not from one species alone. Oak or ash for the heat and the coal bed, a split or two of cherry or apple for the note. This also solves the strong woods: hickory is excellent at a quarter of the fire and overbearing at all of it. A rough starting ratio is three parts base to one part flavor, adjusted after you taste the first thing you cook on it.
You are cooking on coals, not flames
Whatever you burn, wait for it. The fire is ready when the flames have dropped, the wood has broken into chunks glowing orange under a grey skin, and you can hold a hand six inches above the grate for three or four seconds. Flames put soot on the outside and leave the middle raw. Build the fire bigger than you think you need, then let it fall.
If you are not cooking on it
The priorities change completely. Flavor stops mattering and what you want is long burn, a steady coal bed, low spark and little smoke, which dense hardwoods give you and softwoods never will. That is a different question from this page, and one the archive already answers at length rather than in summary.
So for a fire you are sitting around rather than cooking on, start with the best wood to burn in a campfire, how to store firewood so it stays dry and the best types of wood for a fire pit.
Common questions
What is the best wood to burn in a fire pit?
Dense hardwood. Oak is the default because it burns long, holds a steady bed of coals and is hard to get wrong. Ash, hickory, beech and maple all work well. Whatever you pick, it has to be dry: a wet log of the best species still hisses, smokes and never gets properly hot.
What wood should you not burn in a fire pit?
Anything resinous or treated. Pine, spruce, fir and cedar spit sparks and taint food. Never burn treated, painted, stained or pallet wood, driftwood, or poison ivy, oak or sumac vines, whose oils carry in the smoke. Green wood is the most common mistake.
What is the best wood for cooking over an open fire?
Match intensity to the protein first. Oak for beef and lamb, apple or cherry for pork, poultry and fish, alder for salmon. Then adjust the flavor note. A strong wood under a delicate protein buries it, and a mild wood under beef is a wasted fire.
Does the type of wood really change the flavor?
Yes, and more than most people expect, because over an open fire the same wood is the heat and the seasoning at once. You cannot turn the smoke down without turning the heat down with it, so the species decides the flavor before the food goes on.
Can you mix different woods in the same fire?
Yes, and the best results usually come from it. Use a base wood for the heat and the coal bed, oak or ash, with a split or two of a flavor wood for the note. Roughly three parts base to one part flavor, adjusted after you taste it.
What is the best wood for kindling?
Softwood, which is the one job it is good for. Birch, pine and fir light fast and burn fast, which is wrong for the body of a fire and right for starting one. Split it thin, keep it dry, and move to hardwood once the fire has caught.