Green or seasoned hickory??

J

jerrycentral

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I found a guy with as he says green hickory that he says is what you want for smoking meat. What do you guys think about this, do I want seasoned or green hickory?? A famous BBQ joint down the street uses green hickory.

Jerry
 
I've always been told to use seasoned wood, and believed it. It made sense to me that wood would not burn hot enough and release a bunch of creosote on your food if the wood was not dry.

HOWEVER, I recently picked up some Cherry wood that is not fully seasoned, in fact, it's fairly green but not real green. I have used it with no adveres affects to my Q.

For what it's worth.
 
I know some people that swear by green wood. Their logic is the high moisture content leads to a cooler fire.

I am Brethren trained (damn proud of it too) and firmly believe in a clean burning fire that is best achieved using properly seasoned wood.
 
Many years ago I used green oak wood and ruined everything I cooked.

If you could eat some of the meat, it would give you indigestion and an after taste for a week.

I will never cook over green wood again because I can still remember that terrible taste and smell.
 
There's no telling what kind of smoke you're getting from green wood.

Use seasoned.
 
Let it dry. If you want to add moisture, inject, spray, or top off your water pan.
 
Season the hickory or any other wood you depend on for heat and coals!

Fruit woods like apple, peach, pear, plum, etc. can be used fresh - they aren't used for heat as much as flavor and it's their sap that gives a lot of the flavor.
 
chad said:
Season the hickory or any other wood you depend on for heat and coals!

Fruit woods like apple, peach, pear, plum, etc. can be used fresh - they aren't used for heat as much as flavor and it's their sap that gives a lot of the flavor.
Click to expand...

I agree.
 
Not to add fuel to the fire (pun intended:-D ) but the guy I buy my hickory and white oak from also supplies the local restaurants who buy the wood by the dump truck load. I was talking to him and he says a lot of the restaurants burn green white oak with their seasoned wood. They claim that it adds a "vanilla" aroma to the smoke.

I have to be honest, I haven't tried it yet, but I will some day just for the heck of it.
 
bbqinNC said:
They claim that it adds a "vanilla" aroma to the smoke.
Click to expand...

I can see that. Worth a try.

Smoking meat is as much science as art. Lots of experimentation.
 
I can see where adding "green" wood to a raging fire wouldn't cause too much grief...I'd just hate to start with green wood. The "vanilla" thing is probably just an excuse for not having a big enough woodpile to allow it to season!:-D
 
Just saw a show on the food network about the big apple bbq block party.
Mike Mills was saying that he uses only green wood. It showed some green apple wood; he said he just chopped down the tree on his farm-
 
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