Alder
Alnus spp.
Named by the Culinary Institute of America among the commonly used smoking woods. It is the traditional smoking wood of the Pacific Northwest, where it grows and where salmon is smoked — which is the availability argument again rather than a discovered affinity.
What it is
- Wood type
- Hardwood · light grain
- Smoke intensity
- Not established — see below
- Where
- US, international
What is repeated, and not established
Alder is widely described as light, delicate. That description is everywhere and BBQHQ has retrieved no source establishing it.
Described as the mildest of the common smoking woods. Unestablished by any retrieved source.
Texas A&M’s meat science department attributes regional wood preference to local availability rather than to culinary property, and the Culinary Institute of America’s section on smoking woods names the woods without attaching a food to any of them. BBQHQ therefore publishes no wood-and-meat pairing chart.