"making" smoking wood
 

I have some branches and small logs from my fruit trees that we cut last year.
I cut off the ends and split them in chunks.
It that the correct way to make wood for BBQing??

It beats the heck out of buying it!!

Pretty much! Just cut wood into chunk size, viola!

Sounds good.

As long as the wood ends up the size you need it, almost anything goes.

About the size of your fist or a beer/soda can will do.

Thanks, I didnt know if there is a certain drying time

OH.....well, I think this is debatable.
Some folks (I hear Myron Mixon does it) use green wood. I usually dry mine, but just because. I usually dry firewood so I guess that's why.

Chunk will dry out a lot quicker than in log form. Leave it in a crate or something that'll get good air flow and it's dry when it feels dry I guess. You can usually tell when it's gotten rid of it's moisture.

^^^^^^ Wampus said! Crate it and leave in a garage.....

Stack it in a way which air can flow around it should be good to go in 6months , also it according what type of climate you live in if you live in the desert whith low humidity it will dry a lot quicker.

Just gave my chop saw & hatchet a work out yesterday on some donated cherry. Fist sized is good. The smaller branch pieces can be mixed in with the charcoal for a longer smoke time.

Yup, as people reminded me when I asked a similar question though, don't be running logs through a mitre saw, that seems to be a recipe for injury.

My opinion, for the smaller pieces he mentioned, you can control them better in a chop saw than you can using an ax or hand saw. For branches, I use a radial arm saw with a notched piece of wood to safely secure them against the saw fence.

When I cut down my apple tree I used a chainsaw to cut the trunk and all branches 4" and bigger into about 4" thick discs then chopped at those with the axe to get fist sized chunks. Those chunks took about a month to show cracks and make me confident it was dry. I'm about 30% thru the wood I got in a year's time.

Sweet. I've got a maple in the yard I'm going to trim up a little bit this weekend. I'll have to cut up some of the branches and stash them in the garage until fall. :thumb:

You can use it today if you want. It will take a little longer to smoke but it will work. I took some pear cut about 5 hours earlier and smoked some tenderloins with it a month ago for the food editor of the local paper. The recipe made the paper on June 1st.