Maple trees?

[daddyzaring]

Can anyone tell me how to tell the difference between them? My Dad has a bunch of maple in his back yard from a large down limb a couple years or so ago, was just wondering how good it would be to smoke with.

 

[caveman]

Since I am a city smoker, I can't answer your question. But I am sure someone will be along soon to enlighten you.

 

[westsmoke]

Maple is one of my favorites. Theres no reason you couldnt use some old branches. Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

 

[meat hunter]

Most common Maples are the Sugar and the Silver. Both have roughly the same style leaf, 5 pointy lobes. Of the two, the sugar maple lobes are more compact and the silvers are more elongated. The Sugar Maple is considered a hardwood and is great for smoking, but the silver is a great smoke wood as well. The sugar maple being a harder wood, will give you a little more btu's, (heat for the amount of wood used) vs, the silver.
Many a great bbq joints swear by the use of sugar maple on their smokes.

 

[mr bonejangles]

To help identify the tree this link should be helpful

http://www.maple-trees.com/pages/map...tification.php

 

[daddyzaring]

Man there's alot of different maple trees, I'm not sure. lol

 

[mr bonejangles]

Meat Hunters advice may be more useful lol, besides giving that link thats basically the full extent of my maple tree descriptions lol

 

[daddyzaring]

Well I may just have to just give it a try, or wait until the leaves bloom and do a q-view.

 

[erain]

i remember from forestry class i took in high school a simple way to tell the difference between silver and sugar maples... on a silver maple, in between the lobes the pocket is pointed or v shaped, on sugar maple the pocket between the lobes is rounded or u shaped... there is a v in silver and a u in sugar...

 

[coyote-1]

My backyard maple is a silver. I use the downed limbs as smokewood, and it's great.

One thing: Even when the wood's fully seasoned, it tends to generate heavy white smoke for the first couple minutes. DO NOT fear that! Despite the thin blue mantra, in this case the white smoke is fine. After a few minutes, it calms down to thin blue.

 

[jd08]

Are all of the Maple varieties acceptable for smoking? I have a couple in my yard and never thought about it before.

BTW, I'm in South Florida, so they're most likely Florida Maple.