Best Wood for Smoking Pork Butt: Here’s Why it’s Fruit Woods

Last Updated:
October 26, 2023

Most folks who smoke pork would describe it as a rather bland meat – which is why cuts like pulled pork are treated with large amounts of dry rub, barbecue sauce, and vinegar-based finishing sauces.

Wood smoke is another layer of flavor that you can use to further enhance the meat.

In my opinion, the best woods for smoking pork butt are fruit woods like peach or cherry. However, nut woods like hickory and pecan can work quite well too.

A Quick Word About Hardwood “Flavors”

A lot of websites on the internet will tend to steer beginners to smoking meat in the wrong direction when it comes to hardwood smoke.

You’ll likely find articles – much like this one – that will tell you, the reader, to use X type of wood with Y type of meat – like pork butt.

The truth is, hardwood smoke exists on a spectrum from mild to strong.

The mild smoke woods include fruit-woods like apple, cherry, and peach. In the middle lies oak, pecan, and hickory. At the end of the spectrum is mesquite – which most folks would consider strong.

After this point the articles with then become super nuanced and will start describing “flavors” like they’re a sommelier describing wine.

Hardwood smoke flavor doesn’t work like that.

Rather, the chemical byproducts of wood combustion are not universal and actually depends more on factors like the species, age of the tree, and mineral composition of the soil.

Meaning, the “flavor” of the smoke can change based on where the tree was grown.

The Best Wood for Smoking Pork Butt (Pulled Pork)

In my opinion, the best woods for smoking pork butt are fruit woods like Peach or cherry – typically if I don’t have peach, I’ll go with cherry or vice versa.

best wood for smoking pork butt

If I don’t have either of these, I’ll typically use hickory as I usually have it in my barn.

1. Peach Wood for Smoking Pork Butt

Typically of the fruit woods, my go to is cherry as cherry has a way of offering cuts of meat – specifically pork – an awesome red hue.

However, for something like pork butt which is going to smoke for an extended period of time, this hue is going to be achieved no matter what.

The meat is interacting with the smoke for 6+ hours in some cases and will naturally take on smoke and color changes as moisture is being expelled from the meat.

Rather, I prefer peach wood for pork butt and pulled pork:

peach wood
Peach Wood Chunks

Here’s a pork butt after smoking 3 hours and 30 minutes with Peach:

pork butt after 3 hours and 30 minutes

Here’s the pork butt after 5 hours and 14 minutes of smoking:

pork butt after 5 hours and 14 minutes

If you’re interested in seeing my recipe for the above pork butt smoked with peach wood, check it out here.

As is evident from the above photos, the pork butt has a deep mahogany color and looks awesome.

Keep in mind too, my rub had no paprika (which most commercial rubs use low grade paprika for the red color, not for taste) and is actually a honey mustard rub:

pork butt seasoned day before

Some people might argue with me and say that Apple, Cherry, and Peach (all fruit woods) are indistinguishable in the final product, but to me, peach has a stronger “smoke” flavor than apple and cherry.

In my opinion, it’s the perfect amount of smoke to compliment the pork. Where-as cherry and apple wood smoke can sort of be lost in the final product.

With pork butt I like to taste in the following order:

  1. The intrinsic porky flavor of pulled pork
  2. The dry rub / finishing sauce
  3. The smoke

Where-as some of the other woods mentioned below will reverse this order of taste.

It’s worth noting – Peach can be a hard to source. Typically when I’m in the market for peach wood I go to Sharpe Gourmet Cooking Woods as they sell chunks for a relatively fair price.

2. Cherry Wood Mixed with Pecan

Of the different hardwoods, cherry is one I use a lot.

I’m a really big fan of cherry with pork ribs and as a result, I quite like using it with pork butt.

cherry wood
Cherry Wood Chunks

Cherry tends to lend itself to offering smoked meat an awesome red hue. To illustrate, here’s a rack of pork ribs smoked with Cherry:

baby back ribs 2 hours

These ribs interacted with cherry wood smoke for 2 hours and the dry rub only consisted of salt and pepper.

Typically though, 2 hours isn’t enough time to offer ribs tons of “smoky” flavor and I’ll usually mix cherry with pecan just to supplement the smoke with a stronger nut wood.

pecan wood
Pecan Wood Chunks

If you have friends or family you’re smoking meat for, you’d be safe to use something like Cherry if you aren’t sure how much smoke they like.

Just to sort of get this out of the way too – Just because peaches and cherries may be sweet, it doesn’t necessarily mean the wood smoke tastes sweet; Granted, it definitely smells sweet.

You could further argue that since the odor particles enter your nose, they’re also perceived in the mouth. Meaning it technically could taste sweet.

Personally, with cherry I can always pick up on a slight sweetness – whereas with peach I just taste a light smoke flavor.

3. Hickory Wood

Hickory is a hardwood that I almost always have on hand.

hickory wood
Hickory Wood Chunks

It’s a nut wood species that has a stronger, more pungent smoke flavor than fruit woods – often equated to the richness of bacon.

If you’re smoking for a crowd that you know likes smoke, hickory is a great way to achieve that.

It’s like I said above though, the order of taste may be changed. With hickory I find the taste profile is reversed:

  1. Hickory smoke flavor (more pungent than peach)
  2. Pork flavor
  3. Dry rub / Spices / Finishing sauce

Again, I’m partial to tasting pork over everything, then the spices, then the smoke – in that order.

With that said, due to how large some pork butts can be – up to 10+ lbs for bone-in butts – hickory wood is a good option as you pull the bark and musculature together.

Meaning, there’s less of a chance you miss out on the smoke flavor – since it’s stronger.

Often if someone says afterwords that the meat could of taken on more smoke, you likely could of achieved it with hickory or pecan (which is a species of hickory).

Be mindful with hickory too – it’s quite easy to over-smoke foods with.

Hickory also lends itself to adding a dark mahogany color to smoked meats – for something like pork butt this is useful as one of the main goals is to build bark.

What Do Pitmasters Use to Smoke Pork Butt

Just for the sake of comparison, some folks might find it useful to know what Professional Pitmasters use to smoke pulled pork.

A lot of Pitmasters will tend to use Offset smokers and use “sticks” or “splits.” For this reason, they’re apt to use whatever is local to them.

PitmasterType of Hardwood
Myron MixonPeach
Harry Soo50/50; Apple and Hickory
Aaron FranklinPost-oak
Melissa CookstonPecan
Heath RilesHickory
Malcolm ReedCherry, Pecan, or Hickory
dylan bio profile picture
Dylan Clay
Dylan Clay is a pitmaster based in New Hampshire, with over 17 years of experience in grilling, smoking, and dehydrating meat. Throughout this time, he has worked with nearly every cut of meat. In 2019, he launched the Barbecue FAQ website to share his extensive knowledge about all things meat, aiming to assist others in making better barbecue at home.

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