I've always used Kingsford charcoal as a heat source and chunks of Apple, Oak, Mesquite or whatever for the smoke flavor.  A guy up the road said he just uses straight wood, usually oak, and no charcoal.  I always thought that would be way too much smoke, but he claims not.  What do you guys think?  

depends a lot on the type of cooker, what you're cooking and how long.

"stick burners" are great for butts, ribs and brisket as long as you control the air and keep clean smoke going.  Downside is they usually use a bunch of fuel and require frequent tending.

What kind of smoker are you using?  I always used Kingsford prelit in a chimney to feed my horizontal offset then added hickory/pecan/cherry chunks as needed.


Need really good advice?

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=5

Stick burners give REALLY GOOD smoke flavor, if you like a lot of smoke flavor.  I fall in that category but achieved everything I wanted with KBB and wood chunks.

I switched to a good insulated vertical cabinet smoker and it does just as well.  The difference is I don't have to start a chimney of briquettes every hour and add them and wood to the fire.  Now I start everything and can go watch Alabama beat somebody on TV, then go to bed for 8 hours.

In regards to cooking with wood/logs if you are making a lot of smoke you are doing it wrong.... You wan the fire hot enough that you achieve complete combustion and not producing a lot of smoke.

Try it once and see if you like it, I'm sure with practice you could use just about anything

I get great results with a weber smoky mountain and kingsford blue bag charcoal and apple wood chunks.

He's not cooking, he's smoking.  Smoking takes place at a lower temperature.

@OP, I use quality charcoal and wood chunks.  I typically soak the wood chunks in water for a few days before I smoke because I want them to smolder and produce a good quantity of smoke.  The smoker I was using is a Weber bullet that was closed on the bottom as well as the top and had air vents top & bottom.

when we don't have enough left over wood coals in the smoker, we use a little mesquite charcoal just to get the wood going.  then its all wood to the end.

We like wood smoke flavor, mainly mesquite but also pecan and oak

This.  Aaron Franklin talks about the "thin blue smoke" in his book. Keep the firebox door open to promote airflow, keep a good bed of coals in it, and keep adding wood.  Works well with a smoker with an offset fire box, not sure how you'd do this on other styles of smokers.

Yep. Get your coal bed going and the smoke settled before putting meat on

Fruit wood or hickory for pork and poultry. Apple, Cherry, Peach
Poultry is a sponge so go LIGHT ON THE SMOKE or it will be awful

Oak or hickory for beef
Red Oak for Tri Tip otherwise known as Santa Maria. I ordered red oak from California and it was worth it. This is a relatively cheap piece of meat that is damn delicious when done on a smoker.

Mesquite for brisket.

I use Big Green Egg lump coal

Whatever.

The food I smoke comes out tender, moist, and flavorful.  I haven't read a bunch of books on smoking, no one's taught me what to do.  I just do what works for me.

Like the second post said. It depends on how the smoker was designed to cook. You wont be able to get enough air flow and still keep the temps down in a smoker that is designed to burn charcoal (something like a WSM). If your going to get complete combustion then your going to get higher temps. You need a smoker that has some distance between the fire and the food if your going to use logs / sticks as your heat source.  Something like an off set smoker with a fire box on the end.

The other option with logs is to burn them outside of the smoker and reduce them to coals. Then you just shovel the coals and use them like lit charcoal. I don't see how this is really different than starting out with a good quality lump charcoal.

My general rule of thumb is wood for offset smokers (usually some charcoal to get the wood going) and charcoal and wood chips or chunks for vertical or kettle smoking.

If you have a separate firebox then burning wood works great, but requires a lot more work.

Been 5 days and OP still hasn't responded what kind of smoker he uses.  I'm guessing this thread's dead.