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Recommend a moisture meter in 2025
- Thread starter ttkt57
- Start date
1MoreFord
Babbling Farker
I don't have any experience with moisture meters lately but Amazon and Northern Tool have several to choose from. Lowes and Home Depot do too. There are several woodworker supply type companies on the net that also have them.
You want one of the pin style and when you take readings you want to split the wood and take a reading from the newly split portion of the stick.
You want one of the pin style and when you take readings you want to split the wood and take a reading from the newly split portion of the stick.
Bury Me In Smoke
Full Fledged Farker
Make sure you get one that doesn't have the pins in it. The only thing those do is damage the wood you are checking and the pin less ones work just as good.
ttkt57
is Blowin Smoke!
I'm confused. Why should I avoid damaging the wood I'm using for BBQ?
I thought you wanted it for woodworking. For BBQ, no need to check moisture. Just get some going and set the next chunk on the smoker to dry.
ttkt57
is Blowin Smoke!
It's for BBQ.
So there's no need to season green wood as long as you can heat up your sticks before putting them in the firebox?
You don't have to if you can reduce enough moisture before adding to the fire. The issue is that the wet wood doesn't combust enough to burn clean. An unseasoned piece will take far longer to dry enough to be usable, probably longer than the actual smoke. Remember that wood which has been drying for 6 months is fine to use. Less than 6 months then take the time to heat on the firebox before your actual cook to try to get some of the moisture out. I'm also assuming you aren't taking it the day after the tree gets cut down.
Follow basic seasoning techniques if possible, but putting the wood, seasoned or not, on top of the fire box to preheat reduces the "bad smoke". If you are in a situation where you can't wait 6 months for it to dry enough to use, buying some at your local hardware store is better than using the wet wood. IMHO.And one more thing, you need to know how deep a moisture meter reads. My understanding is that most read up to 1.5". So if you have a quartered log that is 5 or 6 inches thick, you may not be getting a deep enough read on the moisture at the middle of the chunk. If I had one, I think that would be a cool experiment to do. Get some quartered logs and test the readings over time and then when they are at a decent level, split them and do another reading on the newly exposed surface.
By the way, take what I say with a grain of salt. I'm not an expert with stick burners. I've had two in the past, but I'm now a pellet owner. Most of the wood I used was seasoned for at least 6 months before I used it and I only burned unseasoned for one cook and did as I mentioned above. Took more time to get to true blue smoke that I felt was worth the effort.
1MoreFord
Babbling Farker
Let me repeat my advice.
For BBQ wood, get a meter With pins and then split the stick so you can check the moisture in the freshly split part of the wood.
Moisture meters only check near the surface. You can't tell what the moisture in the middle of the stick is unless you split it or have pins long enough to get into the middle of the wood.
Delmhorst meters are the brand used by many in the lumber industry. To get an accurate reading in thicker pieces the 18-ES slide hammer probe is the type used. With it you hammer the pins into the wood.
www.delmhorst.com
For BBQ wood, get a meter With pins and then split the stick so you can check the moisture in the freshly split part of the wood.
Moisture meters only check near the surface. You can't tell what the moisture in the middle of the stick is unless you split it or have pins long enough to get into the middle of the wood.
Delmhorst meters are the brand used by many in the lumber industry. To get an accurate reading in thicker pieces the 18-ES slide hammer probe is the type used. With it you hammer the pins into the wood.
Electrodes For Moisture Meters | Delmhorst
Delhmhorst offers a wide variety of electrodes to fit your moisture meter.
www.delmhorst.com
bschoen
Quintessential Chatty Farker
Copied from a post I made maybe 5 years ago:
...
But I have a different take, moisture content at "seasoned" will vary with local climate. Dry in Louisiana will not be the same dry in Arizona. Save your money on a moisture meter and spend it on a decent kitchen scale that will read up to 10 lbs (5 pounds will still work fine if you already have one, you may just have to cut your split in half).
Set the scale to read out in grams. Take 2 or 3 random splits off your pile, Weigh them and with a Sharpie or Marks-A-Lot write the date and weight on the sample. Do this again in 2 weeks, rinse, lather repeat until the weight stays the same, or rises. At this point the wood is stable with the average humidity in your area. AKA "seasoned" or "dry".
This is how anal retentive wood turners determine when their wood stash is cured.
...
But I have a different take, moisture content at "seasoned" will vary with local climate. Dry in Louisiana will not be the same dry in Arizona. Save your money on a moisture meter and spend it on a decent kitchen scale that will read up to 10 lbs (5 pounds will still work fine if you already have one, you may just have to cut your split in half).
Set the scale to read out in grams. Take 2 or 3 random splits off your pile, Weigh them and with a Sharpie or Marks-A-Lot write the date and weight on the sample. Do this again in 2 weeks, rinse, lather repeat until the weight stays the same, or rises. At this point the wood is stable with the average humidity in your area. AKA "seasoned" or "dry".
This is how anal retentive wood turners determine when their wood stash is cured.
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