Wood for smoking/grilling

While pruning and trimming the trees around my place I saved an almost 4 foot limb from an apple tree. I cut the limb into disks and then split them in half. I plan to dry them for a bit before storing them.

I've used mesquite and hickory for grilling and smoking with good results. Thought I might as well try apple as well.

I messed up my bandsaw blade on the last cut due to operator error. Lesson learned. I've since replaced it.

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Beautiful shop

 

Fwiw...
Most smoking chips have you soak the wood as a first step...so I've decided, I'll just use green wood instead. Especially during summer/autumn if i plan to smoke, I'll just do my pruning then. I also, just lop it into a size that fits in the smoker.

 

I guess my question is whether or not the wood disks would develop mold if I sealed them inside an ice cream pail without drying them a bit before hand.

 

I would dry them some. The chips are only soaked in water so they dont ignite and burn up since they are so thin. Those disc pieces you have wont do that. Apple is my second favorite wood to smoke with next to pecan. I mix the two quite often. Hickory and mesquite are strong and while i use those on beef i stick to the fruit trees for pork and chicken. Oak is also great for chicken.

 

Thanks for the info Shocker99. You are right, those are not chips, they are 1 1/2" thick.

My woods contains a lot of oak, maple, cherry and hickory. I enjoy cooking with all of them.

 

Plum works well too.

 

I have a lot of really large wild cherry vine on one of my properties and a forester told me that some guys go nuts about using it for smoking meat. I need to cut some and try it out.

 

Granted I am just a pellet grill guy but I have never been able to differentiate what flavor the meat was smoked over.

 

Fwiw so does peach

 

Just make sure you don't get any poison ivy in with the vines.

 

Yup. My 2 trees died youngish and were used that summer.

Most fruit trees will work