Deadwood seasoning question

[mooner]

Hi guys, newbie here.

I'm building a double barrel smoker for a maiden smoke in mid August. I've got a good pile of seasoned white oak to use but have access to pretty much anything I want. Mother is an arborist in charge of all the trees in a heavily wooded city of ~80,000, I tell her what I want and she'll have one cut down in a week.

Here's my question though.

She has numerous crab apple, apple and cherry trees as well as some shagbark hickory that are dead or dying and on the cut list. With it being mostly deadwood does that help my shortened seasoning time? (around 1-1/2 months) Or is there no difference and should it be seasoned the full 3-6 months or whatever?

Thanks for the help.

 

[creative rock]

If the tree is still standing, not completely dead... I would think you would need to season it the full time. You can quicken the time by cutting in to chunks, and make a kiln, but to most that would be not worth it. Might quicken it up if you have a convection oven, and put wood in there, measure the wood weight before and after, very low temps in the oven.
Matt
aka Rocky

 

[gnubee]

You can tell by how easily it cuts and how it splits. Mostly you just look at the split wood and you can pretty much tell how dry/wet it is.

Next time you start a fire toss one of the questionable splits on and note how it smokes up. Dry wood smokes very little. To green and it will give you some white billowing smoke.