Almond Wood For Smoking- Everything Need To Know

Smoking meat in a smoker is a form of art that requires the right equipment, skill, and patience. However, the one aspect that is frequently overlooked for smoking is the kind of wood that is to be used. The wood choices are seemingly endless, from Oak to Hickory to Peach to Apple and many more. 

Recently, a wood that has gained significant popularity is almond. In this guide, we will be elaborating on every characteristic of almond wood for smoking, ensuring that once you are done reading, you know everything you need to know. 

Picking out the right wood is a critical consideration for any pit master because different woods impart varying aromas and flavors, impacting the taste of the food. Therefore, one must learn which wood pairs the best with which specific food. 

Almond Wood For Smoking

Almond wood for smoking is an excellent option for wood because it has distinct burning characteristics and provides the smoking meat with an appetizing yet unique flavor. Essentially, almond wood is simply hardwood that, relatively and comparative to other kinds of wood, burns even and quickly, making it convenient for the user to level and control the smoke in the smoker.

Additionally, anything being smoked over almond wood will have a nutty, delicate flavor, which is ideal to be paired with when smoking fish and poultry. Nevertheless, it is important to dry and season it appropriately before employing almond wood smoking. 

Dry and seasoned almond wood is promising, will burn evenly, and generate a consistent smoke flavor in the food. If you want to alter the burning characteristics of the wood, you can also do that by mixing and matching almond wood with other mild-smoking wood, such as plum wood and apple wood, which would further add and amplify the already unique flavor profile of your original wood. 

Is Almond Wood Ideal for Cooking?

Most people, before using almond wood for smoking, are concerned about its burning characteristics and worry about whether the wood will prove to be ideal for cooking. To begin with, the wood is very suitable for the smoker and has no health risks or concerns about food safety, so this shall be eliminated from your list of worries. 

Burning 

Fortunately, almond wood is one of the most ideal woods that can be used for cooking. Many of the wood’s characteristics are similar and shared with oak wood; hence, just like oak, your almond wood will create a long-lasting and hot fire, ensuring that a minimal amount of ashes is produced.

However, there is a compromise on the flavor as it will not be as intense as oak wood, but still, the burning will always cook your food fully. 

Seasoning

Another factor that makes almond wood ideal is its seasoning and drying qualities. Despite the resemblance in features with oak wood, almond wood requires only a year to season, unlike oak wood, which demands two full years. 

Taste 

Most nut woods mimic the flavors of their originating nuts. For instance, walnut wood will have a bitter and strong taste, whereas almond wood will give off a contrastingly sweet and different taste to the cooked food. 

Besides the remarkable burning for cooking, almond wood will impart a mellow, nutty, and sweet-tasting smoke to your food, which could be vegetables like squash or asparagus, pork, poultry, and fish.

If you enjoy devouring fish, we recommend that you sometimes opt for smoking trout on almond wood because the final taste of the salmon will be palatable and satiating. 

Types of Foods Best Smoked with Almond Wood

Keeping in mind the slight, nutty, light, sweet taste of almond wood, it is a preferred wood for smoking various foods. Most users, when smoking, tend to use almond wood precisely with fish and chicken, whereas some people also like to smoke their vegetables with almond wood as well. 

Fish and chicken will be smoked in the most desired manner when small chunks of almond wood are used rather than whole and large wood pieces. Smaller sizes of the wood are more efficient at producing a sufficient amount of smoke, and heat smokes the food in the smoker evenly, ensuring it has been cooked from the inside and the outside. 

Smoking Techniques with Almond Wood

You must remember, observe, and integrate some aspects of the almond wood into your smoking techniques. 

Leftovers Taste Bitter

A typical characteristic of almond wood is that it imparts its nutty wooden flavor to the food. Although contemporarily and in the short run, the food will taste flavorful and fine when stored in the fridge for a couple of days, the smoked meat through almond wood will transform into a slice of bitter-tasting meat.  

Therefore, consume as much meat as possible within the first two days of cooking to avoid having your smoked meat leftovers taste bitter. 

Understandably, when investing time and effort in smoking meat, you would want to store plenty of leftovers for yourself, but unfortunately, doing so with smoked meat on almond wood is not an available option. 

On the other hand, if you do consume leftovers, not only will they taste bitter, but will also upset your digestive system. So, quickly consume the leftovers of chicken, meat, and fish smoked on almond wood! 

Combining Woods

Let’s say that you are perhaps not a fan of the sweet and nutty flavor of the almond wood encountered in your food. Then, to alleviate this issue, you can mix another type of wood with almond wood, as it might help counter the sweet flavor by adding its nutty flavor to the food. 

We propose that you use oak wood as a secondary nutty wood option. There are two advantages of oak wood: it tastes less sweet than almond wood and has a differing flavor, so will assist in minimizing the almond wood’s imparted flavor to your wood.

Secondly, the burning qualities, time, and produced heat of oak and almond wood are similar. This will precisely make it more convenient for you to control and regulate the temperature, and as an added advantage, the altogether produced ash will be in a lesser quantity. 

Alternatively, if your preference is more inclined towards using an even milder wood, then you can use ash or alder wood. Both will aid in serving you the purpose of achieving a less sweetened taste in the fish or chicken that you smoke. 

Cooking Tips with Almond Wood

Cooking with almond wood is done in the same manner used for other woods; however, there is one tip we have for you when it comes to cooking with almond wood: dry and season the wood absolutely before utilizing it.

Drying and seasoning almond wood is integral to the cooking outcome you attain. You need to give almond wood the time to dry out. For fresh-cut wood, the dry-out time can vary depending on the climatic conditions. For humid climates, the dry-out time will be 18 months, while in other climates, it will take somewhere between six to twelve months for the wood to dry.

Drying is done to lessen the water that the almond wood retains, otherwise known as the moisture content. With this moisture content in the wood, cooking will be very challenging as heat will not be generated, and the smoke produced will be black and thick, impacting the food’s taste and making it taste bitter.

These issues in cooking can only be prevented by seasoning the almond wood properly. If you ever come across almond wood producing an unnecessary amount of smoke, immediately rule out the cause- improper seasoning. Leave out the almond wood and do not use it for cooking because it is bound to ruin your food and make it taste acidic. 

The Qualities of Almond Wood

There is a reason why almond wood has been renowned amongst pit masters in the last few years, and they all constitute the commendable qualities of almond wood, which are the following:

• Gives smoked food a sweet flavor 
• The flavor can be mild to strong depending on the number of used wooden pellets.
• Perfect for smoking pork, white meat, and poultry
• Can be combined with other woods like oak, mesquite, maple, and pecan
• Readily available in stores
• Less costly and more affordable than woods like hickory and mesquite 
• Accessible in different forms: chips, chunks, pellets

Maximizing the Use of Almond Wood

Honestly, no one likes replenishing the wood in their smoker repeatedly. This is a primary reason people choose to pair different kinds of fuels like charcoal lumps and briquettes together so the use can be maximized and the produced smoke and heat are optimal for cooking.

Likewise, with almond wood, you do not have to bother yourself with the constant worry of refilling the smoker with wood or continuously checking if the wood has burned out because there is a substitute: combining another wood with almond wood. 

Increase Burning Time 

Often, almond wood is used in conjunction with other woods to create complex and unique flavors, other times to ensure the lastingness of the burning of the wood. Whatever your reason, rest assured combining almond wood with other woods is very convenient. 

A consideration that must be made when combining any wood with almond wood is to inquire and explore the burning characteristics of the wood. You would not want to combine almond wood with a wood whose burning significantly differs and will lead to the wood burning out quickly.

For example, almond wood burns fast and hot, so to enhance the burning time, you can combine it with another slower-burning wood like cherry or oak wood to manifest a longer smoke time. 

Alter Flavor 

Specifically, for flavors, you can combine almond wood with plum, peach, and apple wood to add to the sweetness, and for a similar nutty flavor, opt for pecan wood, another widely used and great option.

Conclusion 

In this article, we have covered everything you need to know about almond wood for smoking, beginning with ideal kinds of foods for smoking, covering tips for smoking and cooking, and concluding with maximizing the use of almond wood.

With all this information at your disposal, we hope you can use almond wood to alter the food’s taste and the wood’s burning qualities the way you want to.