Oak in the CS

Oak is great, I love hickory but I also like a lot of smoke, in seems to much hickory can get bitter. So I alway put some hickory, oak and maple in whewn I smoke. By mixing woods I can get more smoke and not have the bitter. A lot of people were I grew up in georgia only cook with oak. Just make sure its dry for the cs.

I use both white and red oak in my 008 & 050 units. I prefer using them on beef and white is much milder than red. First couple smokes using red oak start, with small amounts and increase till you like it. Red oak can be a bit overpowering like mesquite. IMHO...

bob

Sonny's Real Pit Bar-B-Que (a chain in the southeast) only uses red oak. Like the other posts say, make sure it is dry and work your way up in quanity. I like to mix my wood. If a wood like hickory has a bite to it, I like to balance it with apple or cherry.

Oak, pecan, hickory and cherry are staples for me smokes.

I use alot of white oak in the smokette. I only use redoak when cooking over an open wood fire, same with mesquite. I don't like the harsh bitter whang.

There is a difference between white and red oak smoke. Give it a try you will probably have a life time supply. As cadillac says the white is more mellow, so it depends what you are cooking and what you are trying to achieve.

Just a couple add ons to the above.

Because oak is somewhat neutral/mellow it is often used with flavor woods.

Because traditional Cookshacks use small amounts of wood and burn very efficiently,sometimes cooks want more flavor in certain products.

For this reason,some folks will burn pure flavor woods in Cookshacks.

Sometimes, pure stickburners burn oak down to coals,to avoid oversmoking.

A popular blend for many cooks is 30% flavor woods/70% oak.

Being the "queen" of woods,it is often thought to have a mellowing effect.

As said above,try it and see.

Just a couple of thoughts.

I have been mixing Oak Jack Daniels wiskey barrel chunks with apple and love the combo.