Cherry wood smoking wood — sweet smoke and deep color on the BBQ
Short answer: Cherry wood is a mild fruit wood with a sweet, slightly fuller smoke profile than apple. It is best known for the deep reddish-brown color it gives to chicken, pork, and duck.
Cherry wood is the wood you reach for when you want your meat to look as good as it tastes. The smoke is mild and sweet, but the color it leaves behind is remarkably dark. Here is how to use it.
What is cherry wood as smoking wood?
Cherry wood comes from the cherry tree (Prunus) and is a fine, dense fruit wood that is widely available in Europe as pruning wood. It burns evenly and produces very little ash. You can buy it as chips, chunks, or pellets.
Unlike apple wood, cherry wood has a bit more body: it remains mild, but you can taste a clearer, sweet, almost dark note in it.
Why does cherry wood produce that reddish-brown color?
The sugars and phenols in the smoke settle on the surface of the meat and react with the proteins within it. With cherry wood, this happens more strongly than with most other types of wood, resulting in a deep reddish-brown, almost mahogany-like surface. This effect is most clearly visible on chicken.
Meat can darken quickly with cherry wood while the smoke flavor remains mild. Therefore, judge your doneness by core temperature, not by color.
Which meats should you use cherry wood with?
- Chicken and duck — beautiful dark skin and soft, sweet smoke.
- Pork — pulled pork and spareribs gain extra color.
- Beef — works well in a blend, for example, half cherry and half oak.
- Cheese and salt — popular for cold smoking due to its sweet note.
If you want to compare per type of meat with other wood types, check out the guide on which smoking wood goes with which meat.
Blending cherry wood with other smoking wood
Cherry wood is an excellent mixing wood. Combine it with hickory or oak if you want the strength of hardwood with the color and sweetness of fruit wood. A ratio of two parts cherry to one part hickory works well for pork; for beef, you reverse that ratio.
How much cherry wood do you use per session?
Three to four chunks for a three to four-hour session on charcoal, spread among the coals so they ignite sequentially. On gas, use a handful of chips in a smoker box, refilling halfway through. Do not soak the wood: wet wood smolders and produces white, bitter smoke instead of thin blue smoke.
Which rub goes well with cherry wood?
The sweet smoke calls for a counterpoint of smokiness and paprika. The Memphis BBQ Rub pairs well with pork and chicken: the smoked paprika enhances the color that cherry wood already provides.
How do you store cherry wood?
Dry and ventilated, in a cardboard box or open rack, never in a sealed plastic bag. Fruit wood molds faster than hardwood. Use only untreated wood; more background on the tree can be found on the Wikipedia page about the cherry.