# Why not Cedar ?



## canadiannewbie

Hi Gang

I read that cedar should not be used to smoke but could not find the reason.

Is it because it will give off fumes (like pine)

I planed a lot of cedar and have 5 garbage bags of shavings I was hoping to use :-(

Thanks in advance

Dave in Canada


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## tjohnson

Pine, Fir Spruce and Cedar contain resins that may negatively affect the taste of your food.

Do a test burn and see for yourself.

Todd


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## alelover

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/wiki/wood-types-and-flavor

Types of wood that is unsuitable or even poisonous when used for grilling. Don't use any wood from conifer trees, such as *PINE, FIR, SPRUCE, REDWOOD, CEDAR, CYPRESS, etc. *Also* ELM, EUCALYPTUS, SASSAFRAS, SYCAMORE and LIQUID AMBER* wood is unsuitable for smoking.


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## roller

x2


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## canadiannewbie

Perfect ! Thanks for the link also :-)

Dave


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## michael ark

What about ceder planks ? I have see people cook on them many times.


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## oldschoolbbq

Newbie, if you want the flavor of pine in your food without all the Creosote getting on your food, go to a Spice Store and get some Juniper Berries and grind them up in your Rub. I have tried it and it gives a stout Piney fragrance,but ground-up and cooked ,it get bitter. The only way I use it is in Brines and Cures,and not much then either.


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## raymo76

I have cooked many racks of ribs on a cedar plank and everyone has enjoyed them.


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## padronman

Cedar "planks" are not true cedar. I believe they are from the Mahogany family thus not poisonous.  Most of your true cedars are what is called "aromatic" cedar.  Not good........


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## raymo76

Well there ya go. Use the planks and don't worry.


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## bluebombersfan

oldschoolbbq said:


> Newbie, if you want the flavor of pine in your food without all the Creosote getting on your food, go to a Spice Store and get some Juniper Berries and grind them up in your Rub. I have tried it and it gives a stout Piney fragrance,but ground-up and cooked ,it get bitter. The only way I use it is in Brines and Cures,and not much then either.


A buddy of mine does smoked Northern Pike and cans them with a few spigs of juniper.  The taste is fantastic!!


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## cliffcarter

PadronMan said:


> Cedar "planks" are not true cedar. I believe they are from the Mahogany family thus not poisonous.  Most of your true cedars are what is called "aromatic" cedar.  Not good........


Cedar planks are cedar. Period. Cedar planks are used for grilling all the time. Cedar is used to smoke fish by natives in the PacNW and Canada, but the technique is more like smoking in a smoke house than in an offset or a WSM.

BTW the smoke woods list needs to be amended in regard to *Sassafras*, people do use it with good results.


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## sqwib

Cedar

Conifers, should not be used for smoking

Resinous woods such as conifers create smoke thick with unburned carbon and pitch.

Cedar is a conifer, Conifers should not be used for smoking. However Cedar planks are safe to smoke or grill on.
 

Planks for grilling, _untreated _cedar, Hickory, alder, or maple.

Sassafras

My father has smoked with Sassafras many years ago, he said he used to chew on the twigs as a kid and from what I read a sassafras twigs stimulates saliva production: a useful fact for desperately thirsty hikers.

The dried and ground leaves from sassafras are used to make filé powder, an ingredient used in some types of gumbo.

In 1960, the FDA banned the use of sassafras oil and safrole in commercially mass produced foods.

Safrole oil is extracted from the root-bark or the fruit of sassafras plants.

The roots of Sassafras was used in the flavoring of traditional root beer.

Sarsaparilla, sassafras are ingredients still used by hobby or microbrew enthusiasts.

Sassafras wood is commercially available for smoking, however, smoking woods are not regulated.

Would I use Sassafras wood for smoking? If I had sassafras, absolutely, after all my research I have not found any reason not to use it.

So I have to concur with Cliffcarter on both points.


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## daveomak

I would not use cedar for smoking due to its oils and resins/rosins....  Here is one article...  there are others you might consider "googling"

J Allergy Clin Immunol. 1989 Mar;83(3):610-8.
[h1]The toxicity of constituents of cedar and pine woods to pulmonary epithelium.[/h1]
Ayars GH, Altman LC, Frazier CE, Chi EY.

[h3]Source[/h3]
Department of Internal Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle 98195.

[h3]Abstract[/h3]
Occupational exposure to cedar and pine woods and pine resin (colophony) can cause asthma and chronic lung disease. Prior studies suggest that plicatic and abietic acids are responsible for the asthmatic reactions that occur in cedar-wood and colophony workers; however, the etiologic mechanism(s) of the chronic lung disease is unknown. To determine if plicatic acid from cedar wood and abietic acid from pine resin could directly damage lung cells, we exposed monolayers of rat type II and human A549 alveolar epithelial cells, intact rat lungs, and rat tracheal explants to solutions of plicatic and abietic acids. As indices of injury, we measured lysis of alveolar epithelial cells with a 51Cr technique, quantitative desquamation of epithelial cells from tracheal explants, and histologic alterations in tracheal explants and intact lungs. Plicatic and abietic acids both caused dose- and time-dependent lysis of alveolar epithelial cells. Instillation of plicatic and abietic acids into rat lungs produced bronchial epithelial sloughing. Abietic acid also caused destruction of the alveolar epithelium. The addition of either acid to rat tracheal explants caused epithelial desquamation that was dose- and time-dependent. Our results suggest that plicatic acid, a unique constituent of cedar wood, and abietic acid, the major constituent in pine resin, can produce lytic damage to alveolar, tracheal, and bronchial epithelial cells. We hypothesize that repeated occupational exposure to these substances might promote the chronic lung damage observed in some cedar- and pine-wood workers and in electronic workers exposed to colophony.

PMID:2926083[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]


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## alelover

raymo76 said:


> I have cooked many racks of ribs on a cedar plank and everyone has enjoyed them.


Did the planks burn or emit smoke at all? It seems people use these planks over and over again so I imagine they are not burning or emitting any smoke.


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## sqwib

alelover said:


> Did the planks burn or emit smoke at all? It seems people use these planks over and over again so I imagine they are not burning or emitting any smoke.


Read this

Thought it was interesting


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## kaveman

sasafras is great for smoking, also the roots from young trees can be boiled for tea,i've drank many of cups of it!


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## raymo76

Yep the planks burned, I don't think any flame ever licked up the top to my ribs though (as in the pictures in the link just posted). The bottom of my planks always looked all aligatored from burning. I still have a few that I haven't used yet. I soaked those from the moment I decide I'm going to use them, so i thats in the morning for dinner that's when I soak em.


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## coffee_junkie

raymo76 said:


> Yep the planks burned, I don't think any flame ever licked up the top to my ribs though (as in the pictures in the link just posted). The bottom of my planks always looked all aligatored from burning. I still have a few that I haven't used yet. I soaked those from the moment I decide I'm going to use them, so i thats in the morning for dinner that's when I soak em.


Yes the planks burn/smolder and flavor the meat, usually you place fish on them, never heard of ribs but okay. Here/over there in the pacific northwest it is very common to cook your fish with cedar/on a cedar board.




PadronMan said:


> Cedar "planks" are not true cedar. I believe they are from the Mahogany family thus not poisonous.  Most of your true cedars are what is called "aromatic" cedar.  Not good........


Cedar planks are very much true cedar. Especially when you go the the hardware store and buy a cedar board. You should only cook with WESTERN RED CEDAR, Eastern cedar varieties are NOT SAFE TO COOK ON.

Hope this helps.


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## alelover

Thanks SQUIB. Very informative.


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## clglj

Hello

Originally smoking was just a way to preserve food and peoples were using what was available nearby.

In the mountains and in the Nordic European countries, only Pine was available, .

Now, despite that they can get easily any kind of wood they still using it (some places in France, Switzerland, Germany and Scandinavia).

As far as cedar are concerned, to me there are only 2 genuine kind of cedar.

The most know is from Lebanon, and the other on in growing in the Atlas mountains in North Africa, and is called  Marrocan cedar

I have used the Marrocan cedar quite often, I have one in my garden (growing quite fast)

I use quite dry wood, no resin, nice light smoke giving a delicate taste to the food.

I have organized a *blind* tasting

on my side very cheap small Norvegian salmon (less than 4 US$/kilog) smoked with cherry tree wood and cedar

On the other side most expensive Scottish salmon, made by a Scottish smoking company (more than 120 US$/kg)

All the taster dislike the Scottish one, and claim it was not Salmon.

Claude


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## tsunami

I do live in the beautiful Northwest and have cooked many salmon on cedar planks. The flavor is terrific in fish. So I decided to do some BB today. I soaked the cedar in apple juice first. You don't want it to just blacken up too fast.













alder and apple chips in apple juice.jpg



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apple juiced cedar planks.jpg



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racks are ready.jpg



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I'll keep you posted. Hey can someone remove this large growth off my back.LOL.


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## tsunami

Tsunami said:


> I do live in the beautiful Northwest and have cooked many salmon on cedar planks. The flavor is terrific in fish. So I decided to do some BB today. I soaked the cedar in apple juice first. You don't want it to just blacken up too fast.
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## addertooth

The reason Sassafras was banned by the FDA, was due to DDT (a powerful persistent treatment for insect pests, now banned in the USA), was absorbed by the sassafras tree in high concentrations.  Now that DDT has been banned for decades, and the concentration of DDT has declined in the wood, it is quite safe to use.  Like many of my generation, I have drank many cups of sassafras tea, produced from the boiled root of the tree.  I also have some of Todd's pellets, made from the same tree.  The pellets have the unique aromatic character of the wood, burn a few, and you can figure out which smokes will be enhanced by these pellets.


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## kentuckycal

Just to add to this, do not under any circumstance use Eastern redcedar (a.k.a. Virginia juniper or also just called 'cedar' around where I live).  I did this once, years ago, and boy was it a mistake.  Why?  Because I was smoking spare ribs and ran out of hickory chips and had forgotten to check my chip supplies before I started the smoke.

Instead of just running out and buying more, I decided to be lazy and chunk up some cedar I had in my woodpile... I have a mostly wooded lot and tons of cedar on it.

The ribs came out with the most awful turpentine smell and taste ever.  Worst thing I've ever cooked in my life!  Wife took one bite and spit it out and so the poor ribs went into the trash.


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## hobbychef

Cedar Planks are best for placing salmon or other type fish on top of.

Don't get the plank or shavings to burning as then they would release

the "creosote or similar oil" that will foul the flavor. Regular Cedar 

Shingle planks work well, but you can use the special marketed ones.

Be sure to soak the cedar before you cook with it so it will only smoke

a little and give the flavor.


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## cedar eater

Northern white cedar is not a true cedar. It is a member of the cypress family, as is western red cedar and eastern red cedar, although eastern red cedar is a junipera, not a thuja. I've had fish cooked on white cedar planks and they were great. But the smoke from white cedar is particularly irritating to eyes, noses and lungs and that tells me that something in it is probably not good in high doses, so I checked wikipedia where I found "Due to the presence of the neurotoxic compound thujone, internal use can be harmful if used for prolonged periods or while pregnant." So I would only smoke with it if I didn't have something else, but I doubt it would cause any more noticeable harm than adult beverages.


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## ncsmoker007

This weekend I smoked a 11 lb Boston Butt for 2 hours using eastern red cedar.  Before moving it into the oven for another 8 hours, we of course sliced off a taste.  If you've ever had a hoppy ale and enjoyed the bitter after taste, that's what we got.  It was very nice, but we wondered if the bitterness would mellow while in the oven... and so it did.  I have to say it was the best tasting Butt of the bunch (5) we smoked (using apple, hickory, cherry and mesquite).


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## cedar eater

NCSmoker007 said:


> This weekend I smoked a 11 lb Boston Butt for 2 hours using eastern red cedar.  Before moving it into the oven for another 8 hours, we of course sliced off a taste.  If you've ever had a hoppy ale and enjoyed the bitter after taste, that's what we got.  It was very nice, but we wondered if the bitterness would mellow while in the oven... and so it did.  I have to say it was the best tasting Butt of the bunch (5) we smoked (using apple, hickory, cherry and mesquite).


Eastern Red Cedar is a juniper, and there are many recipes that include juniper berries, so I would imagine that the smoke can't be all that bad. Western Red Cedar and Northern White Cedar are thujas, and I haven't heard of any food use for them, other than planks for fish.


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## happybullsmoke

Recently I smoked a large salmon with very well seasoned (dried) Eastern Redcedar (_Juniperus virginiana_).  The smoke was blue, sweet and there was no tar.  It was my first time to go beyond the cedar planks and was the best smoked salmon I've ever made (I've been smoking salmon for about  25 years).

I saw a reference to the pulmonary complications from inhaling cedar and pine smoke.  No doubt.  This exposure is inhalation and causes lung damage.  Not ingestion.  Inhalation of our favorite wood smoke can also cause lung damage.  Tar and poor smoke management from any wood can make food undesirable.


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