Wood and food pairing chart help

[YoDadio]

In general, stronger smokes pair best with beef and/or game while milder smokes pair better with poultry and seafood. I find that vegetables, cheeses, and nuts are somewhat of a wild card in that anything really goes based upon your preferences, what the main course is smoked with, and the flavor profile of the food in question. Take all of the above and combine it with everyone’s unique palette and you quickly realize that getting an all-inclusive chart/matrix for pairing wood with food is challenging…

I have been scouring the interwebs for a handy dandy chart to pair woods for smoking food. While there is no shortage of information available I could not find anything that really “spoke” to me. I wanted something that would provide a fairly extensive list (you never know when you may come across some free wood or a new recipe), provide more information than simply “yes this pairs with that”, and is fairly easy to understand.

Ultimately I took the liberty of “cutting and pasting” data from a number of sources into the attached chart. Please note that I have not personally tried much of the attached list, nor do I proclaim myself to be a gourmet chef, though I think it does provide a solid baseline for pairing woods and foods. Rows in yellow are “non-traditional” wood sources. At the very bottom I added some notes about types of woods that should not be used.

Assuming such a list does not already exist in this forum, I am not too ridiculed, and/or there is demand, I would be interested in your input to validate and improve things. I can see changing out the “X” for a numbering system (i.e., 0 No go, 1 OK, 2 Good, 3 Great) based on general consensus and maybe adding some columns to address heat and ash production for the stick burners out there. I am open to pretty much anything if it will be for the greater good of my smoking brethren.

I look forward to your input (and ridicule  ).

 

[stout]

here's one from this forum

http://smokinitforums.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2151.0;attach=3582

and here is another i came across elsewhere

http://www.deejayssmokepit.net/Downloads_files/SmokingFlavorChart.pdf

 

[YoDadio]

Stout,

Thanks for the quick response. I already incorporated both links in my chart.

To me the first was more of a cook book that happened to pair (a limited number of) woods with food and really only provided "yes this pairs with that" type data without providing much insight as to the smoke characteristics.

As for the second link, I like that it has a much longer list of wood types, is alphabetized, and that it provides the smoke characteristics. That is why is serves as the core of my chart. I feel that my "X" makes for quick pairing (particularly when the chart is sortable).

Having said that, I am probably overthinking the whole thing as many will only use wood types they grew up using or can get at big box stores.

 

[SuperDave]

Plum is great for poultry and pork. This wood is similar to hickory but is sweeter and milder in flavor.

 

[Durangosmoker]

Wow, this is great. Thanks for taking the time and effort to put this together.

 

[YoDadio]

Thanks for the input guys. I appreciate it.