Peachwood is a beautiful smoking wood with a distinct sweet flavor that’s perfectly paired with smoked salmon, glazed ham, or poultry. Find out how to use peach smoking wood for your backyard smoker or grill today.
Fruit trees such as the peach make surprisingly good woods for smoking. Their naturally sweet flavors combined with the smokiness of the cooking process make for a delicious meal in the end.
You might be wondering what peach wood is good for. What makes it different from other barbecue fruit woods? Luckily, we’ve put together a guide covering everything you need to know about using this particular wood in your smoker.
What is Peach Wood?
Peachwood comes from the peach tree, a type of fruit tree native to China but is now widespread worldwide. Peachwood is surprisingly strong for wood from a fruit tree, making it useful for woodworking and barbecue.
Peachwood has a moderate hardness, meaning it is durable enough to go into the smoker but is not as hard as walnut or oak.
Peach Wood Characteristics
The most distinctive feature of peach wood is its flavor. When you cook meat over peach smoke, it absorbs the rich, fruity, sweet taste that the wood gives off. It will taste subtly like peaches, although not overwhelmingly so. The longer you cook meat over it, the stronger the flavor.
The aroma is similar to the flavor. Peachwood smells very sweet as it burns, meaning that your BBQ will almost smell as if you’re making dessert.
As it burns, peach wood doesn’t give off very colorful smoke. Your food will darken, but it won’t take on a distinctive shade as it would with cherry.
Like most other hardwoods, peach wood can burn steadily for several hours.
How To Use Peach Wood
Peachwood is incredibly versatile. You can use it in pellet, chip, chunk, or split log form, depending on the best format for your smoker.
Before you can put peach wood into your smoker, it has to be cured. This isn’t a problem if you’re getting your wood from the store, but if you’re chopping up some logs from your backyard, you can’t chuck them into your smoker right away. Instead, you need to dry them and let them age, sometimes for a few months.
Peachwood is a great wood to use on its own, even if you’re a beginning pit master worried about overwhelming your meat with too much smoke. That’s because its mildness is very forgiving. You can also mix peach wood with other, stronger woods such as hickory to balance out the flavors.
One thing to keep in mind before rushing to the store to get peach wood is that it is quite expensive and rare. Your best bet for sourcing some is to ask around for local producers.
Best Meats to Smoke Using Peach Wood
Peachwood works with just about any meat, but it pairs best with light, mild meats.
Have you ever heard of cooking pork chops and peaches together for Sunday dinner? If you have, it won’t be a surprise to learn that peach wood goes well with pork. The sweetness of the wood brings out the natural richness of the meat. For this reason, peachwood is also one of the best woods for smoking ham.
Peachwood is a great choice for smoking poultry such as chicken and turkey. Poultry has a mild flavor that strong woods such as hickory will mask.
Peachwood also works well with more bitter cuts of meat, such as gamey venison, because it helps to balance out some of the natural bitterness.
Once you can source peach wood, it is a versatile tool. You can use it with many cuts of meat and mix it with other wood chips to personalize your smoking experience.
