I am located in northern lower Michigan and have had a few people ask me if I would cut wood for smoking meat. Does anyone know what different type of woods would work best. One of the guys mentioned cherry and apple, we have oak, cherry, ash, maple, basswood is what we typically get delivered for firewood in the area. Thanks in advance.
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A good question. All of the fruit woods are good especially cherry, pecan, apple, and pear. For strong flavor mesquite and red oak and mountain mahogany. For fish, red alder is the best.
It is fine to take wood off your own property, but all of these can be easily found at home improvement stores.
Apple and pear are the most popular around here. Interesting side note: Bradford pears are used just like other pear trees. I gave a smoker buddy of mine some wild cherry and persimmon and he's supposed to report back as soon as he uses them.
thanks guys for the info, my sister works for a large cherry farm, going to check with her to see when they take any old trees down. I have about 30 large bags that were used to ship beans in, I have been using those for keeping wood for firewood bundles. If there is enough interest, it would be easy to fill those for the wood for smoking easy to deliver or pick up.
One more question, when restaraunts or people that smoke food in great quantities, do they use larger pieces of wood or longer lengths? If the wood is to dry, do they soak it first? Some of my cherry is 2 years old now in 8' lengths.
some like 12"-16" with a large smoker some like 3"-6"x 1-1/2 sq for Mid smokers
some like chips small smokers and will soak some don't depends on if your cold or hot smoking
bill,
Thanks, waiting to hear from a friend that owns a restaurant that smokes a lot of meat.
a commercial fish smoker up my way uses red oak as do the do-it yourselfers. also apple if you can get it. jg
jaygtree,
thanks, do you have any idea how long or large the pieces are? I have a 6 way wedge I can use on my firewood processor, hoping those will be small enough pieces.
I do wood turning and save my wood shavings for smoking. As others have said, fruit wood is excellent. I also like hickory. Seems like the wood I turn most is Cherry and that also works well for me.
I've heard that our ironwood, hop hornbeam, makes a good smoking wood. I've never tried it ;) :) :)
I use Hickory and Alder mostly. Want to try some apple or cherry soon.
I use a Weber Bullet which can only smoke two turkey's at once so bear that in mind but what I use is charcoal briquets for the heat (and some smoke) and 3 to 6 chunks of smoker wood (Hickory mostly) during an 8 hour smoke.
Don't really need a lot of Hickory but will run through 5 pounds of charcoal
I use cherry, applewood and maple. I like hickory but it is hard to find up here. I think there is a slight difference in taste between soft maple and hard maple. I usually use my splitter and make slabs about 1nch thick and then cut them on my radial arm saw every 1 or 2 inches. Then sta them on end and split them into small blocks I have one of the gas smokers that is about 3 or 4 foot tall
Most of the restaurants around here that use wood use normal sized firewood chunks. I see piles behind cracker barrel, outback, longhorn etc.
Oak and hickory are the norm.
Thanks guys,
Corley5, never thought about ironwood, I have quite a bit of that too, it would certainly smoke for a long time. Trying to keep my guys busy this winter and think its worth looking into. If I get much interest from commercial guys, I will post my results.
Did you check with Ebels in Falmouth, they be able to give you some ideas of what they use in their smoker. I think Mark is the one in charge of the meat dept. Just an ideal
ivan49
Thanks for that idea, I go to Ebels all the time. If your ever up my way, please stop in, I am 1.5 miles north of Kalkaska on u.s. 131. I will also be at the buckley old engine show next week.
We're going to Buckley Thursday. Hope the weather is good. It's a show of extremes. Hot and dusty or ankle deep mud. Never an in between 8) 8)
Quote from: Corley5 on August 10, 2016, 07:29:14 AM
We're going to Buckley Thursday. Hope the weather is good. It's a show of extremes. Hot and dusty or ankle deep mud. Never an in between 8) 8)
You forgot crowded also. It is a great show use to go every year
We go on Thursday because of the crowd. Friday and especially Saturday are too much. Thursday isn't too bad.
Quote from: Corley5 on August 10, 2016, 07:29:14 AM
We're going to Buckley Thursday. Hope the weather is good. It's a show of extremes. Hot and dusty or ankle deep mud. Never an in between 8) 8)
Kinda-sorta the same weather conditions for us when we go to Oakley (Mid Michigan Old Gas Tractor Association) the third weekend in August every year. One of three types of weather occur every year...without exception!
1) Rains of Biblical proportions.
2) Hot enough to cast lead bullets.
3) Both numbers 1 and 2! ;D
Haven't missed a show since 1989! 8)
Hope you guys stop in and say hi, I will have one firewood processor, a couple of bundlers, and hopefully an abs auto split commercial splitter there.
I heard that black birch is good as well. It has a sweet taste to it.
little logger,
Thanks, never heard of black birch for smoking, learning a lot in here again.
we use hard maple mostly in late winter early spring with the sap in it makes it sweet
coxy,
thank you for another good idea, still contacting some restaraunts to see if there is enough need to pursue this. thanks again
Do a search on the internet for woods used for smoking. There are some really good charts of different woods and what flavor it leaves in the meat. It also tells what wood not to use
ivan49,
thanks for that info, it generally says use heavier woods like oak, hickory for heavier meats like beef and pork. Use lighter hardwoods like alder, maple, fruit and nut bearing trees for lighter meats like poultry and fish. I also went to wood database and that really has good pictures for identifying different woods. One of the reasons I am looking into this is a good friend smokes meats at his convenience store and I never tasted meat like that before. He asked me if I could get him some cherry for his smoker.
Here in pa I smoke all my red meats and pork with 2 parts black birch and one part sassafrass.....
Some folks out here and one native I have let use cotton wood sometimes. Popular up north to.
I never have but its supposed to be kinda sweet. It smells like poop, so I hope it smokes better!
Anyone that smokes fish, owes it to themselves to try red alder. Buy some if you have to.
thanks to everyone for all their ideas, I had my first restaurant call and I am going to bag up some cherry and let them try it. I will let you know how it works out. If anyone has a smoker, I would not mind a phone call sometime so I can better understand this process. thanks again
Print this out: Smoking Wood (http://www.deejayssmokepit.net/Downloads_files/SmokingFlavorChart.pdf)
thanks magicman, just got this, must of turned off the notify button.
I was up by your place last week. Nice looking processor sitting in front. Some day when my wife isn't with me I'll stop in