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1st time smoker.can you use the wood from a recently cut down tree,

i have recently made a 2 barrel 55 gallon smoker.where can i get wood or charcoal at a reasonable price.

apex asked in Cooking Tips & Tricks 7 months ago | Report

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  • 41663_1064187383_6760_n_small
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    Craisglist, Everyone has an ad on the free page if you are willing to go get it.

    ZephyrP answered in Cooking Tips & Tricks 7 months ago | Report
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  • Gold-head_small
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    Fnarf

    You COULD smoke with it, but the flavor may be a little off, especially if it's really green from recent growth. You'll also have to have some other kind of wood or charcoal as your "base" fire, since the green wood won't burn well. Get some good lump charcoal (not briquets) at Sutter Home and Hearth in Ballard. The Big Green Egg stuff is good, but they sell another kind from Argentina that's even better. They also sell about a dozen different woods, though they're kind of expensive.

    The best way to find wood is to find someone cutting a tree of the right type -- oak, cherry, apple, alder, pecan, even walnut is great -- and get some from them; perhaps the chunks and scraps that aren't good for anything else. Another possibility is grapewood from old gnarly vines that someone's ripping out. Lemonwood is good. Any hardwood, basically. Lots of people are cutting alder around here; it grows like a weed in the PNW.

    Another possibility is scrap hardwood lumber -- odd bits of oak flooring, from someone putting in a new one for instance. Make sure they're not treated with anything -- don't take the old floor. A lot of brands of lump charcoal have charcoaled flooring scraps in, which is a little startling at first but works great.

    The one thing you want to avoid any kind of pine, cedar, fir, or other evergreen wood because of nasty tars in the wood that are toxic and, even worse, taste bad (yes, bad-tasting meat is worse than death).

    Fnarf answered in Cooking Tips & Tricks 7 months ago | Report
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  • Pd_small
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    I'm pretty sure the wood has to dry for about a year before you can smoke with it.

    Misty Brown answered in Cooking Tips & Tricks 7 months ago | Report
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