I missed this thread! Maybe because I use an electric smoker.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
You are the ribmekingest poster on here. Not a bad thing.
Just ribs. And they were just decent; nothing to write home about. I’ve decided I’m giving Aldi pork the cold shoulder from here on out - too many misses (and often extremely fatty). Their beef/chicken/lamb are fine, though.
And this is a bone in shoulder smoked pernil-style. The skin ringlets didn’t stay as neatly parallel as the reference photo in the recipe but it was still tasty and the skin was crispy, smoky and sweet (from the marinade). I served this sliced rather than shredded/pulled. I tried to find the recipe (so I could show their photo along with mine) but am coming up empty.
I don’t have a fancy smoker and instead do it on a Weber Summit. I use bricks to elevate a wire rack off the surface in the center of the grill, and run only 2-3 of the 7 burners, one of which includes the smoker bin burner on the far right, and the far left burner. This will keep the cabinet about 265°F except in very windy conditions. Pear is one of my favorite smoking woods.
Aldi’s meat is pricey to me, and low quality.
I used pear last year, but have run out. Got plenty of apple, though.
I have not tried pear. Maybe will give it a try.
I typically stick with hickory or apple for ribs.
Brisket I use oak, hickory.
Hickory, apple, pecan for pulled pork.
Hickory for bacon.
If I’m looking for something short, intense, and hot I’ll use mesquite.
I only used it because I had one die in my yard a few years ago. My neighbor has about 120 apple trees he wants gone, so I oblige, little by little. The dead ones are great, predried.
Like Greg, I’m sadly currently out of pear. An old workmate felled several in his yard about 10 years ago. He’s an antique woodworking nut and built a sawmill in his basement (unlike his other tools the mill is powered, though, in concession to the difficulties of either getting horses down there or diverting a stream through there for a waterwheel).
Every so often he mills some more of the pear wood down for cabinetry and gives me the sawdust and the odd bits he can’t use, which often amounts to a 10 gallon rubbermaid type bin full that lasts me a few years.
So pear is my favorite addition for any kind of foul, lamb chops, and pork chops - anything where I normally use a sugar-salt as opposed to just a salty brine. I use about 75% pear (apple now as sub) and 25% hickory.
I flip the ratios of pear (now apple) when mixing with hickory and sometimes red oak for pulled pork and brisket and the like, so just a bit of that sweetness comes through.
He also felled a cherry one year and I know it’s supposed to be good smoking wood but I didn’t like it, not at all. Even more acrid, to me, than mesquite, without the good parts of mesquite. Mesquite for me is usually less than 20% mix with hickory/oak, and I don’t get it all that often.
I gave up on smoking belly for bacon. I wanted it cold smoked initially and had jury rigged a cold smoker from a pair of U-Haul clothing boxes (one was originally a copy of Alton Brown’s hot-ish smoker for salmon) with old dryer vent ducting in between. Getting enough smoke flow in the right direction was a problem, so the boxes are somewhere down in a shed out back. But heck, that was probably 20 years ago. Now that computer fans are so easy to get for $12 on Amazon, I might give it another shot.
I love the smell of cherry. Never smoked with it. It’s a pretty wood, as is hickory. I had the dryer vent to broken down fridge for the longest time.
Was that cherry fully dry? My uncle got the bright idea of smoking with fresh apple. I told him I’d give him well seasoned apple, MUCH better. He wouldn’t hear it, so away he went with a face of fresh applewood. Knucklehead. He said it didn’t turn out the way he’d hoped. He’s an amazing woodworker. How could he not know better than burning wet wood for smoke. So much crap in green wood.
Good point to note, Greg - definitely you don’t want to smoke with fresh wood of any sort, so far as I know.
But yeah, it (the cherry I’ve used, both from my friend and commercial prep stuff) was seasoned at least a year in my garage and fully dry. I put any non-commercially bought woods I’m going to use (usually apple, red oak, etc) in the garage for a year before I use it. It’s hot in there and no rainfall on it so it dries out pretty well.
My brother in law is a volunteer tree climbing/cutting nut. Loves topping trees. Volunteers for every disaster work that comes up with Lutheran Services or his employer (State Farm - which encourages employees to do disaster work). He’s been my biggest supplier of apple wood for the last 15 years.
Green/fresh wood is full of nastied you don’t want on your meet. I tried to tell him. Hopefully losing two racks of ribs is the only lesson he’ll need there. Then, he came out by me again. Set him up with dry wood. Voila, the clouds parted. Like a second dad to me, though. Patience through bias.
Cross posted from the NorCal news thread 
Thanks BBQB!! Walked by a few days ago and noticed the smoke, and was very tempted. Will have to hit this place up asap.
North Beach brings back some memories.
That place reminds me of Big Daddy’s in St Paul. They had a little building they sold the BBQ out of but everything was smoked in the vacant lot next to it in a similar smoker.
U used to sell postcards to the guy that was on upper Grant up the hill.
He had a great business reproducing vintage SF postcards, in addition to buying up big lots.
Good times 
I have the Masterbuilt 30 electric - I think I paid $200ish new. I like it, but after a couple of winters (outdoors but covered), moisture somehow affected its electronics and now it trips my GFCI outlets. I have to run an extension cord to a non-GFCI outlet to use it, which is a minor inconvenience, but would probably keep me from buying another of the same model when this one finally kicks the bucket. If the one on offer is relatively new, $75 is probably reasonable, but beyond a year or two I would try to get that price down a bit.
Thanks for the tip. I’m staying off craigslist for a little while after just getting burned i.e. hacked.
Much appreciated. Thanks for the review. My pal had one and, he said the electronics where immediately off, so he bought another brand.
Bummer 
