7 Best Wood for Smoking Brisket

If you love beef, you know that brisket is one of the most popular cuts that you will see in the market. The beef brisket is one of the nine beef primal cuts, which is from the breast or lower chest of beef or veal.

One of the best ways to cook a beef brisket is a slow cooking process. This is due to the fact that the brisket tends to be tougher, and it needs time to be cooked properly. Smoking brisket is a good way to get the tender and delicious brisket on the table. 

Cooking brisket through the smoking process needs to be done thoroughly to get the best flavor. You might need to get a good smoker, wood chunks, meat thermometer, aluminum foil or butcher paper and a knife. 

Electric smokers would provide a convenient way to smoke brisket, but it won’t give you the full flavor compared to using wood chunks smoker. Also, cooking the beef brisket would also take time. This is one of the reasons why using hardwoods is recommended for smoking brisket. 

Smoking brisket using the right choice of woods is needed to get that perfect smoke flavor. There are other woods that might overpower the flavor of the beef. Let us help you select which one is the best wood for smoking brisket below. 

What Are The Best Wood For Smoking Brisket

Patience is needed if you want to have a good brisket served on BBQ parties at home with family or friends. Selecting the best wood to smoke a brisket is a key essential in achieving that part. 

You will need to look for the wood chunks that could give a continuous smoke and heat for a long period of time. Here are some of the best woods that you can use for smoking brisket. 

Mesquite

If you want a wood that would burn slowly, yet could generate an intense heat, hard mesquite wood is your go-to. These wood chunks would be perfect to cook large sized briskets. Mesquite provides the meat a distinctly bold and earthy flavor. 

Though mesquite is designed to be a hardwood, there are times that it tends to burn quickly. Be sure to mix it with some softer wood, like the apple chunks. In this way, you will also get additional flavors on the brisket without overpowering it. 

To get the best mesquite wood, buy it by clicking here. 

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Pecan Wood

If you want to get some sweet, rich and nutty flavor for your smoked brisket, pecan wood is the perfect choice. If you are going to cook larger briskets, make sure to choose the wood chunks over the wood chips. 

Wood chunks would burn longer when compared to the wood chips. Pecan wood would be best for poultry, but it is also compatible with beef, pork, and game meats as well. 

Since it comes from the hickory family, BBQs would taste great with the pecan wood. To buy this wood for smoking a brisket, just click here. 

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Maple Wood

If you are new to smoking meats, try out the maple woods. The flavor produced by maple  is mild and subtle, which means you won’t get an overpowering taste on your brisket. 

The good thing about the maple is that it is a well-rounded wood for smoking, not only with beef brisket, but with other meats such as pork and poultry. The sugar-maple variety is best for turkey. 

If you want to use wood chunks of maple for your BBQs and smoking to get that tender meat, buy it here.

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Oak Wood

One of the best woods to get for smoking beef would be the oak wood. Its smoky flavor matches perfectly with the brisket. Aside from that, the oak woods are commonly used on smokers as it is the easiest type to use among the other different woods. 

Just like hickory, oak is very good for long burning time as it is a hardwood. Unlike hickory, the flavor profile of the oak produces a more subtle and mild smokiness, since it belongs to the mild woods. 

You can dilute this wood with the other types that have stronger flavor profiles to get a more rounded taste on the smoked brisket. 

To get a dense smoke, use the white oak variety for your brisket. To buy that post oak, simply click here. 

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Hickory Wood Chips

Hickory comes from hardwood trees of the genus Carya. It is considered as one of the best deciduous woods for a long period of cooking. Hickory woods will give a clean burn.

Using it to smoke brisket would help in enhancing its taste as the hickory will emit a bacon-like flavor. However, just make sure not to use too much hickory wood as it has a slightly stronger flavor when compared to the other wood chips. Doing so might overpower the original taste and smoke flavor of your brisket.

If you want to buy some wood chunks of hickory, get it here.

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Apple Wood

Just like Cherry, Apple wood chunks have sweet notes, mild and mellow flavor. Though the wood of an apple is best for poultry and pork, you can’t go wrong if you will use it for smoking brisket. 

This wood for smoking brisket can be mixed with stronger flavor woods to even out their overpowering taste, just like the hickory. 

If you want to buy a pack of wood chunks from the apple and have that fruity flavors, just click here. 

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Cherry Wood

Cherry wood chunks or wood chips are very popular for smoking brisket and other BBQ recipes. It is also a hardwood that comes from the cherry fruit tree and is very good for longer cooks. 

Cherry wood emits a slightly sweet flavor with a fruity hint. This smoking wood is best for any meat products such as poultry, beef, pork (especially ham), game birds, lamb and some seafood.

That is why you can’t go wrong if you will choose wood chunks or wood chips of cherry to smoke your brisket to have that sweet fruity flavor. 

To buy a pack of wood chunks of cherry, just click here.

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How to Choose the Perfect Smoking Wood For Brisket

Choosing the best smoker is one of the factors that you will need to consider when smoking brisket. Offset smokers would produce a more consistent smoke when compared to the electric-driven smokers. That means if you want to get more depth of flavor on the brisket, choose the offset smoker instead. 

To get the best brisket flavor profiles, choosing the right wood would matter. Good wood sizes would matter in getting that tender meat and delicious taste of the brisket.

Infusing different woods for smoking brisket would create a different level of smokiness on your brisket. For mild smokiness, choose those mild woods. To even out the overpowering flavors of some woods, like hickory, you can dilute woods with more subtle flavor. 

If you want to produce smoke quickly, start by adding wood chips on the smoker. Then, gradually add some wood chunks into the smoker. Make sure to get the right wood choices and the woods for smoking brisket if you want to have that perfect brisket on your BBQ party.