BBQ cooking wood

[ponyexpress976]

Ok boys and girls...here's my dilemma. I'm getting buried in shorts and cutoff and odd balls. I get a lot of my wood from tree services and they cut it to what is fastest for them. The last thing I'm going to do is make their day harder. Since a lot of the wood is great for BBQ (I get A LOT of cherry), I bust some of it up for personal use by hand. I sell a basket here and there...but only because I can't process it fast enough. My question is would it be feasible to build a box type wedge like on a timberwolf tw-7 or some of the huge European processors but on a much smaller scale? Say maybe 2" squares?

 

[c5rulz]

I am a BBQer and smoke often. A 5 gallon pail will last me a year so I can't see going to a lot of effort just for smoking wood. Same for sales, there just isn't a big enough market it for it. Why can't you just run it through the splitter more to make splits smaller?

 

[Streblerm]

I get a lot of odd sized pieces. On a side note I learned that the quickest way to stop getting free tree service wood is to complain about the odd lengths .

What I do is leave the short cuts fairly big and then I just burn them in the stove like any other piece. They can be a pain to stack but they burn just fine. 8-10" pieces stay in a round and anything bigger up to 20" diameter might get split only once. Little pieces go in a trash can for barely shoulder season. I hate to be wasteful.
Nice spring picture huh?


Selling small quantities of smoker wood sounds like a tough way to go. You would have to sell a lot in order to make any money at it. Kind of like bundles but with a smaller target audience.

 

[ponyexpress976]

I've been using the odd balls here at the house and selling the stuff that stacks well. I recently put an add on craigslist. $7 for a mounded milk crate size basket and unloaded the 15 or so I had for personal use in a few days. One guy saw my pile of "to be processed" and said he's take it as is. Unfortunately I had hit the dump button on the truck about an hour earlier....but a sale is a sale so I ain't complaining. Right now I sell enough of the smoking chunks to keep me happy. If I could do it more efficiently, I'd be great.

 

[TedyOH]

A 5 gallon pail will last me a year so I can't see going to a lot of effort just for smoking wood.

I have a BBQ pit (Lang smoker) and a 5 gallon bucket wood last me 1 hour. It runs 100% on 16" splits. To do a 12 lb brisket I probably go through about 24 splits.....all that said I wouldn't process it any further than splitting it once (if at all), If I needed more cherry I would buy it as is. The problem is these big "stick burners" / BBQ pits are pretty expensive, maybe try finding a real BBQ joint in your area that's uses wood for cooking.

 

[c5rulz]

Weber Smokey Mountains are misers on wood, hence I don't use a lot.

Would this pile keep you going TedyOH? The two stacks on the right are hickory, the rest of everything is oak.

 

[TedyOH]

Would this pile keep you going TedyOH?

Ohhhh yeah.....nice! I'm a black cherry kinda guy though.....

 

[Stihlofadeal64]

In this area we are in -- it's BBQ country. In the holidays the wood-sellers get $175.00 a pick up load for hickory. They usually sell out before the holidays get close. Most of the old timers are cooking the old way -- burning the wood down and shoveling coals. I cook as well -- usually 12-15 butts and many briskets. (Lots of snacks while these are cooking as well i.e. bacon wrapped tenderloin, bratwurst, etc. etc. Just putting a few more pennies in the pile.

 

[windthrown]

$7 for a mounded milk crate of smoking wood? Wow, I would sell all my wood here if I could get that kind of price. Most people here give away apple, cherry and not tree trimmings this time of year from pruning their orchards. Cannot say there is an optimum size for smoking. I use an offset smoker and just use small splits, cut up pruned branches from my orchard, and odd size chunks of hardwood that does not stack well. Anything 8 inches or less in length is fine. I prefer alder and apple for smoking myself, though I have a lot of cherry and plum trees here that I use.

There are some guys up around Seattle that get like $400-500 a cord for small cut fruit and nut woods like apple, cherry and pecan, but that is for high end market types in a high cost of living city and the burbs. Some apple orchards in east Washington supply them with their annual prunings and orchard clearing wood. Its a racquet. I get all the alder I want here for free. I feel bad to heat my house with alder, it is so good a smoking wood. But the house smells like smoked bacon when I burn it.

 

[cuinrearview]

Weber Smokey Mountains are misers on wood, hence I don't use a lot.

This is true, love my WSM. To the OP: If you want to sell BBQ wood a decent sized band saw is your friend. The bandsaw cares not about grains, knots, and crotches. I don't sell it but I make chunks for friends and it's brainless.

 

[c5rulz]

Ohhhh yeah.....nice! I'm a black cherry kinda guy though.....

I've got small amounts of cherry in the stack too. Smells great in a campfire.

 

[ponyexpress976]

There are a lot of cookers around here...not big stick burners but not WSMs either. The black cherry is what I do most of my cooking with as well.

 

[angelo c]

I have a few customers that I deliver "pit wood" to. All the odd sized stuff, cherry, some pines/red cedars ect...they go in a separate pile and get sold to them. Don't need seasoning as it just gets thrown in a pit for outdoor fun stuff. I sell one guy about 3 cords a year, every few months cheap and he loves the "smelly" woods. Whenever the pile gets to a truckload I call him and deliver. Get to know what yer customers want and get it to them. Makes biz fun.

 

[sb47]

Ok boys and girls...here's my dilemma. I'm getting buried in shorts and cutoff and odd balls. I get a lot of my wood from tree services and they cut it to what is fastest for them. The last thing I'm going to do is make their day harder. Since a lot of the wood is great for BBQ (I get A LOT of cherry), I bust some of it up for personal use by hand. I sell a basket here and there...but only because I can't process it fast enough. My question is would it be feasible to build a box type wedge like on a timberwolf tw-7 or some of the huge European processors but on a much smaller scale? Say maybe 2" squares?

I use these wire baskets. They hold 1/2 cord of odd size chunks and drop offs.

 

[Wood Doctor]

I sell BBQ Cookin' wood in 16-lb plastic bags that I double up before packing. What I usually do is cut split red oak logs in half to about 8" lengths and then split them two or three more times. These small chunks really work well in barrel smokers and Weber grills. The guys using them say they just get the grill fire started with charcoal and then use the wood for most of the cooking thereafter.

A 16 to 17-lb sack usually fetches $3 each or two for $5. I tie the bag handles closed with jute line. Around early May, they start selling very well here. So, I have to get my butt in gear and start building an inventory. Tomorrow I have to help carry away wood for a guy trimming his pin oak tree. That also works very well.