Which wood for which meat
Match the smoke to the meat and to the length of the cook. Pick what you are smoking and the woods that suit it light up.
The wood scale
Mild on the left, punishing on the rightNever burn these, for any meat
Pine, fir, spruce, cedar, redwood, cypress, eucalyptus, elm, sycamore, sweetgum, sassafras, and anything painted, stained, glued, pressure-treated, or showing mold. Softwood resin tastes of turpentine and coats the cooker in soot. Cedar planks are fine as a cooking surface, never as fuel.