Wood chips for smoking

[CP]

Anyone make your own?  What works best, chunks, chips, saw dust?  Bark on or off?

[Okanagan]

I make my own chips and like it but only bought chips a couple of times so have not compared very much.  I have easy access to alder, and have gravitated to using that for everything I smoke:  salmon, trout, venison, BBQ pork... 

Up the BC coast almost to Alaska, Native people told me 40 years ago that how you cut the wood makes a difference in smoked salmon flavor.  Of course, they were so used to salmon that they really could tell where most were caught by the taste and texture when smoked or cooked.  I wish I could ask them about how big of diameter and how seasoned the wood should be.  I prefer stuff dried for at least six months but not old super dry wood, no bark at all. 

They told me that alder cut by a saw produced a different flavor than chips cut with a blade such as axe or big knife.  I probably could not tell the difference but use a machete and sometimes a block plane to produce wood chips and curls from alder poles, cutting mostly with the wood grain.

 A friend made some alder furniture and I saved a bag of cuttings from his planer, and those have worked well also. 

[Twispriver]

I make my own and I use different methods for the different types of smokers that I use. For the pan type smokers for fish and jerky I make small chips using an old jointer that belonged to my wife's grandpa. For the charcoal smoker that I use for bigger cuts I use a hatchet and make more chunks than chips and for all-day smokes I make the chunks pretty big. I use mostly alder and apple but I'll also grab a piece of cherry or maple and have had good luck with that as well. I only use seasoned wood and no bark.

[jamesfromseattle]

I used to use chips but have started just tossing a firewood sized chunk of wood in (usually maple or alder).  At the low smoking temps it just sort of smolders and doesn't burn up.  Each chunk will last a few few hours so it is more user friendly than chips.

I haven't been able to tell the difference in results but I don't smoke often enough to really have a scientific sample size.  Curious to hear what others have to say about the effect the size of the wood pieces has on the flavor.  May have to experiment with chips again.

[Evil_EdwardO]

Chunks. Lately I've been using plum and apple wood from the trees my neighbor took down. Never used plum before and I like it a lot.

[C-Money]

I use apple chunks for everything. Great flavor!

[CP]

Ran a test of some alder chips made with the wood chipper vs alder chunks made with a hatchet.  The chunks produced much more smoke and completely smoldered away to ash.  The chips smoldered for a while and left a large pile of blacked chips after the smoke died away. 

I'm declaring the chunks as the winner.

[Stein]

I just take a hatchet to apple tree trimmings and it's always turned out great.  In the electric smoker, the bigger chunks take a bit longer to get started smoking, so I fire it up before I put the fish in and then let it go.

I had a huge pile I took to the dump, I posted it on here and nobody was interested.  It always seemed better to me to use the free stuff over the $6 per bag pile of sawdust that only produces smoke for 20 minutes at a time.