- Jul 29, 2008
- 118
- 10
Since I began smoking several months ago, I have experimented with several wood supplies. The majority of my smokes have been with commercially sold bags of wood chunks from retail stores like Home Depot, Lowe's, and even Wal-Mart. An advantage to using these wood chunks is that they appear to be quite dry, and as a consequence they burn very well. The primary disadvantage (at least for me) for using these is that my wood is by far the greatest expense for each smoke.
My father has plenty of pecan and red oak logs available (as many limbs have fallen over the past few years), and I have cut these limbs into chunks and used them several times. This wood has been drying for quite some time, but neither seem to burn up as quickly as the commercial woods. Now, I know that the faster the wood burns, I get more instantaneous heat but at the same time I do not get to keep this heat for as long a period of time.
Frankly, I have watched my "homemade" (if you will) chunks in my firebox, and they don't seem to "catch fire" but instead just smoke and gradually burn down. While this is desired sometimes, I would also like to have some wood that I can count on to catch fire and bring my heat up in a hurry.
I would appreciate any advise on how to solve this problem. I have attached a picture of 3 of my typical pecan chunks so that a size and geometry can be visualized.
Thanks in advance!
My father has plenty of pecan and red oak logs available (as many limbs have fallen over the past few years), and I have cut these limbs into chunks and used them several times. This wood has been drying for quite some time, but neither seem to burn up as quickly as the commercial woods. Now, I know that the faster the wood burns, I get more instantaneous heat but at the same time I do not get to keep this heat for as long a period of time.
Frankly, I have watched my "homemade" (if you will) chunks in my firebox, and they don't seem to "catch fire" but instead just smoke and gradually burn down. While this is desired sometimes, I would also like to have some wood that I can count on to catch fire and bring my heat up in a hurry.
I would appreciate any advise on how to solve this problem. I have attached a picture of 3 of my typical pecan chunks so that a size and geometry can be visualized.
Thanks in advance!