Florida Black Cherry

[theoldman]

Just finishing up a small remodel project using native Florida Black Cherry.  I have intentionally used no other species during this project, keeping the contents of the dust collection system pure cherry.  This of course contains shavings from the thickness planer, joiner, shaper, router table and saw dust from the saws. I bought this rough  sawn from a local saw mill 6 or 7 years ago, and have had it stickered to air dry since. I also have all the drops (cutoffs) saved in dry storage.  I have a home made reverse flow smoker, that I usually build a charcoal fire and feed splits to for both heat and smoke.  The moisture content of this cherry is very low. If I burn it by itself, I'm sure it's gong to burn very hot with very little smoke. Would it be better to soak the chips/sawdust and place them in a cast iron frypan over the coals, or just sprinkle on the bed of coals? How about the drops?  I want to do some Canadian Bacon, Pork Butts, Ribs & chicken over this wood. I really don't want to burn it all at once, rather feed it on top of charcoal or oak coals.

 

[geerock]

Don't put the dust directly on the fire or coals it will just flash. Put the dust in a packet made of tin foil and leave the ends open or make holes in the packet. They also make inexpensive dust burners for smokers.

 

[theoldman]

I've got both the amazn sawdust burnr & the pellet burner, how would you use them? just fillem up and see what happens?

 

[theoldman]

Smoked 2 large butts, 3 racks of ribs & a chicken over the cherry cutoffs. Started off with a chimney of charcoal coals with a small cast iron frypan on top full off sawdust/planer chips. Burnt up pretty quickly.  Tried just adding cherry wood scraps, but they're petty small & burn quickly. Tried to use the AMZN smokers, neither of them would stay burning with the cherry in them.  Ended up using a 20# bag of charcoal briquettes, a large tote full of wood cutoffs, 6 or 8 pans of sawdust mix, and ended up using oak splits. Sawdust mix worked pretty well if first water soaked. If you could keep a good bed of coals under the frypan filled with the wet stuff, it worked pretty well, but was hard to get smoking.  Ended up just tossing gobs of the wet stuff onto the oak coals with a small shovel.  Results were good, but it was an all day task, needing to check the fire etc. every 15 minutes. Thinking seriously about a gasser.  Has anyone else out there tried smoking with cutoffs/sawdust/chips from the cabinet shop?  Sure like to hear from you.

 

[woodman3]

I have a wood shop also. I use my cutoffs in my smoker. Really the only thing to remember is small pieces burn fast and hot. When I make bowl blanks for turning I save the trimmings. Mostly cherry. I don't use much of the dust.