Using REALLY green Hickory

[Lake Dogs]

Q: Has anyone smoked/burned really green Hickory with any success?

I'm finding that the wood that I purchased as Hickory isn't Hickory at all.

I have many Hickory trees in the yard, and I'm thinking about taking out
a limb or two this weekend (I shutter at the thought though) and having
it available for me for a cookoff in 2 weeks...

Got plenty of oak though! Almost a full cord. Wonderful firewood, and
I'll mix a piece or two of it here n there in the smoke. However, we
prefer our heavy doses of Hickory...

[Bbq Bubba]

Not unless your into blackened creosote flavored food.

[Lake Dogs]

HATE it. That's what I'm afraid of. That, and a skunky green-wood flavor.

Luckily I have hickory chunks, plenty of them... They just get kind of expensive
burning them this way. Have plenty of seasoned oak. It may get me through...

Sorry, I'm just ticked off (that I paid for Hickory and didnt get Hickory).

[big brother smoke]

Originally Posted by Bbq Bubba

Not unless your into blackened creosote flavored food.

I support this statement!

[Bill-Chicago]

Dry it in the oven.


.

[barbefunkoramaque]

YES

Myron Mixon maybe? It can be done, usually with dry seasoned Oak as your heat source.

NO
BUT - Unless you have a wall of trophies like Jacks Old South.... iiiiiiiii wouldn't try it out.

YES
Take that back - I will just say this - I will lower the standards a bit....

Unless you don't mind wasting some meat (IF) you screw up, (which you may not) I think if you smoked hot and fast with a LARGE percentage of your heat and fuel coming from something like some good seasoned oak... which you can typically use with little smoke in the proper type of smoker, a few green logs, not representing more than 1/4 of your fire at any time, and placed on a well coaled VERY hot bed of coals (which is best for hot and fast) then you can get away with it as the meat's being subjected to a total time next to smoke less than say a low and slow smoke.

NO
This being said - ya know, that looks like a real lot of IFS that don't even enter in to whether or not you are good at the art of fire management or not

YES
But know what - FARK - what we internet gurus say - I know I could do it and probably get away with it - But then you can blindfold me and hand me a cunk of wood and I can feel and smell what it is and if I drop it can tell you what its moisture content is.

NO
Come to think of it - I think every stick burner in here would probably, if cornered into the situation of ONLY having green Hickory for a smoke, would be able to adapt, find some charcoal for the main heat source, find some other dry wood to supplement the green hickory, or make adjustments with foil or pans or overall total cooking time to reduce the exposure to green smoke.

YES
So yes, go buy a pellet pooper.

[barbefunkoramaque]

Originally Posted by willkat98

Dry it in the oven.


.

This FARKER has a point -

I had this happen at a fair long ago. Had a helper misunderstand the orders to pack up what and what type of wood.

Solution was - we reduced the overall size of the logs (slit them more), we separated out the bark cuts from the heartwood, and spent more time drying the bark size nearly to charred black and toasted the outsides of all sides of the heartwood to drastically reduce the greenness.

BBQ turned out wonderful.

had a few box top fires at times

This does NOT fix the total problem as greenness is BOTH moisture content AND the sugars being modified from time also. But it is a good fix somewhat.

[Lake Dogs]

Thanks guys. I appreciate it. For me, it's a NO GO then. I have enough chunks
(for now) for the smoke, and I can use some wonderfully seasoned oak (sans bark)
for heat source.

Anyone know of someone in central Georgia who a) can properly identify hickory and
b) has some for sale, y'all let me know, will 'ya?


... Tasting that Makers Mark already ...

It's been a LOOOOONG week.

[barbefunkoramaque]

Originally Posted by Lake Dogs

HATE it. That's what I'm afraid of. That, and a skunky green-wood flavor.

Luckily I have hickory chunks, plenty of them... They just get kind of expensive
burning them this way. Have plenty of seasoned oak. It may get me through...

Sorry, I'm just ticked off (that I paid for Hickory and didnt get Hickory).

DUDE! You are from Georgia. I will say this about the South as I am from Texas, which as everyone knows, is NOT part of the south.

Stickburners from your region have for a long time reserved the BIRTHRIGHT of being able to baffle the rest of us with the capability of using green wood and producing great BBQ.

You certainly don't need any Yankee help in this regard. Sure, I would expect a Yankee would want to play it safe, but never forget, you are southern, which thereby means the mere fact you are sitting next to the smoker, you can create a force field around you meat that isolates it from bad smoke with SHEER WILL!

Always, when receiving advice, always consult the region the advice is coming from. Of course, last year I lived in Connecticut and you should see Bubba's Brisket (yum) and he is from... shutter the great lakes region, where they can't even load ore freighters right.

[Lake Dogs]

Originally Posted by barbefunkoramaque

DUDE! You are from Georgia. I will say this about the South as I am from Texas, which as everyone knows, is NOT part of the south.

Stickburners from your region have for a long time reserved the BIRTHRIGHT of being able to baffle the rest of us with the capability of using green wood and producing great BBQ.

You certainly don't need any Yankee help in this regard. Sure, I would expect a Yankee would want to play it safe, but never forget, you are southern, which thereby means the mere fact you are sitting next to the smoker, you can create a force field around you meat that isolates it from bad smoke with SHEER WILL!

Always, when receiving advice, always consult the region the advice is coming from. Of course, last year I lived in Connecticut and you should see Bubba's Brisket (yum) and he is from... shutter the great lakes region, where they can't even load ore freighters right.

LMAO! I needed that after this week! Yes, born in Tuscaloosa, on THE
campus, raised in Atlanta, by a man from LA (that's Lower Alabama for
the rest of you guys) and a damned cajun woman, daughter now goes to
(shutter to think) UGA. I'm DEEP SOUTH suthun'.

Yes, we DO have our forcefield. However, I think Myron has cornered the
market on ability to hit-it-right using green woods... I'll stick to what I
know and love, which is heat source of dry red & white oaks, and smoking
with dry hickory...

We'll allow Texas to claim suthun'. Me, I have to. Damed wife is from
Fort Worth. We're going to have a good ole time this year with the
Dallas vs. Atlanta game!

Have a great weekend, and thanks for all the advice/feedback. I thought
it was a stupid idea to begin with. Came more out of frustration and the
desire to wring-the-neck of the guy who delivered this wood...

[SirPorkaLot]

Originally Posted by barbefunkoramaque

Stickburners from your region have for a long time reserved the BIRTHRIGHT of being able to baffle the rest of us with the capability of using green wood and producing great BBQ.

I resemble that remark

Having been born in Tenn and raised in NC, I grew up learning there is only one kind of BBQ (pulled pork), and everything else was not really BBQ. Of course I now know better, and will even permit brisket to hit my smoker (but only for limited times)

If you cure your green hickory if can be used - sparingly.

Oven is one option, but what i do - still to this day with even well seasoned wood - is to use a pre-burner.

This works real well with green wood, and allows you to burn off all offending gases, creosote, etc..before it ever sees the smoker.

and yes, I know people that use oak for fuel, and ONLY green hickory for flavor (it has a much more aggressive flavor profile)

[J_Don]

GOD BLESS TEXAS ! ! ! ! When Texas does finally decide to succeed I'm definitely moving back to Katy or the Austin area. Gods country.

[Tweedle]

see below

[Tweedle]

Originally Posted by barbefunkoramaque

DUDE! You are from Georgia. I will say this about the South as I am from Texas, which as everyone knows, is NOT part of the south.

Stickburners from your region have for a long time reserved the BIRTHRIGHT of being able to baffle the rest of us with the capability of using green wood and producing great BBQ.

You certainly don't need any Yankee help in this regard. Sure, I would expect a Yankee would want to play it safe, wait a darm min here... but never forget, you are southern, which thereby means the mere fact you are sitting next to the smoker, you can create a force field around you meat that isolates it from bad smoke with SHEER WILL!

Always, when receiving advice, always consult the region the advice is coming from. Of course, last year I lived in Connecticut and you should see Bubba's Brisket (yum) and he is from... shutter the great lakes region, where they can't even load ore freighters right.

Although I cannot prove it with a gc or a trophy, as my frist contest is this month, I put out some amazing q. Tha t being said i would like to make two points

1) I am a "Yankee" (although a redsox fan not to be confused lol)
2) I only use green Hickory in my offsets.
3) We very rarly play it safe

Wait was that 3 points...

If you know what you are dong green hickory will put out the best q you have ever had. But it takes some work so maybe its a Yankee thing

[jswordy]

Oak is a good smoking wood, so worries there. You sure you don't have hickory? There are 5 species of it, and the bark looks different on all of them. Shag bark is the easiest to identify. Most folks here spot that, but tend to call other hickory stick wood oak, when it is not.

Never have tried using green wood. Mine's always seasoned.

Under edit:

Lookee here: http://forestry.about.com/cs/treeid/a/the_hickory.htm