Cherry wood question

[SincinnatiSmoke]

My mind has always told me a cherry tree was a smaller tree that either blooms in the spring with flowers or has fruit. A friend just gave me a few splits of wood from a cherry tree he says......but it is the 150ft kind. Is this good for smoking? Maybe there are big versions of cherry that I'm unaware of. It does have a redish color to the center sections like most cherry wood I've seen.

 

[Huh? What?]

Looking it up, the world record tree for height was 114 ft. The average big tree is reputed to be half that. If the tree is really 150 ft, I'd question what the tree really is.

 

[Shagdog]

Yea, smoke it up. There's the cherry tree that bears fruit, then there's the wild cherry trees. I don't even know what else to call em, but the second kind don't bear fruit. They're where the cherry hardwood comes from you see in some furniture. They grow much much bigger than the fruit bearing variety. And are probably my favorite cooking wood. For everything.

 

[BBQ Freak]

I been smoking with wild cherry for years and they get really big , smoke on brother .

 

[robert-r]

Was at my SIL place in Idaho & he has Really BIG Cherry trees.
So I cut some seasoned fallen branches into small rounds & split them to smoke a Tri-Tip.
WOW!!! That was some good smoke.

 

[Diesel Dave]

Yup as said you're good to go. Like Smoke Dawg it is my favorite wood to smoke with as well

 

[SincinnatiSmoke]

Cool thanks. Yeah, he said it was the kind of cherry tree that you would used to make gun stocks and furniture. I got to snooping around on the internet and found a tree called a Black Cherry tree which may be what it is. It is really tall like an Oak.

 

[SincinnatiSmoke]

Here is a random photo of on.

 

[Diesel Dave]

Yup that's a wild cherry. And as she said, the use for furniture and gun stocks makes it a hard wood. These are the woods that give you good heat and Cherry is great for flavor and color on the bark, a nice amber color

 

[cheez59]

There is little doubt that what he is talking about is a wild cherry. I think the 150 foot thing is quite a stretch though. Very few hardwoods of any variety reach that height. The cherry tree in the pic is probably no taller than 60 feet. Either way it is some fine smoking wood. I have been using wild cherry for many years.

 

[SincinnatiSmoke]

Well, you know us guys. We like to exaggerate on size. Maybe it was 80-100ft :wink:

 

[SincinnatiSmoke]

This is a split of it. Look like wild cherry?

 

[cheez59]

This is a split of it. Look like wild cherry?

Yes it does but it could also be red oak. It is hard for me to tell without looking at the bark or seeing several pieces together

 

[J-Rod]

Well, you know us guys. We like to exaggerate on size. Maybe it was 80-100ft :wink:

Haha yeah we do. When I worked at a hardware store as a teen I used to handle ten foot lengths of pvc pipe all the time, and I sort of memorized that length. To this day when estimating the height of something I envision those pvc pipes stacked end to end. It works pretty well!

In regards to cherry, it's great. Smoke it up man.

 

[gun smoke]

in northern mi. we have 3 types of cherry trees. the fruit producing, a small bush type that can grow to med. large size but rarely does we call a choke or pin cherry and the type that grows tall and straight known for making lumber. all work fine for smoking.