I recently made the jump from an electric smoker (a Redi-Smok, which is
a good one if you have to use electric) to an off-set smoker (a Silver
Smoker, as yet unmodified). And now I'm curious about wood.

So far, I've been using a mix of charcoal and wood, using the charcoal
as a way to get things going and then switching to wood, but the
question is what sort of wood should I be using? With the electric
smoker I used either mesquite or hickory chips, but this is a job for
more than chips.

In looking around this area (Western slope of Colorado), I'm not finding
anyone selling hardwood. The firewood tends to be soft woods. Pine,
cedar or aspen. I ruled out pine and cedar right away, but the aspen is
working pretty well. Wikipedia says it's a slow burning softwood with
few resins. And that seems to be the case. The chicken, boudain,
country style pork ribs, and beef back ribs all came out very nicely -
nice smoke ring on the pork and beef, great clean smoke taste.

But I curious what else I should be looking for in the way of wood, and
if anyone has any ideas where I could find it in this area.

Thanks,
Mike