Smoking Wood for northern states.

Sorry I'm late....  below is a chart someone put together...  there are many such charts...  don't know the validity, but it's a start...

speerphish said:

Hi, I've been smoking for a few years now and I have recently decided to build my first trailer smoker. I'm trying to find out what kinds of wood any Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota guys are using for Smoking.

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Welcome to the SMF speerphish!  I am from central ND, I like to use the River Ash And Oak wood  we have native to our area along with other Misc. branches from my fruit trees I have planted over the years.

All else fails I like the old standby original KingsFord Briquettes, none  of that match lite stuff.. I also been working on building a little oven to make my own hardwood Briquettes from the Ash and Oak wood.  

You could also try contacting the soil conservation people and they too might have a list of the native hardwood trees in your specific area? Good luck and keep us posted with what you find ?   

DaveOmak said:

 
Sorry I'm late....  below is a chart someone put together...  there are many such charts...  don't know the validity, but it's a start...

WOOD for SMOKING 1.jpg

• daveomak
• Jan 14, 2017

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Dave that is interesting wood info. I also seen a chart someplace that had the individual BTU rating of each different hardwoods  that I thought was kind of interesting. I was working on making a small oven to bake some Ash and Oak to make char to see if it's a noticeable increase in the BTU's  over the normal dry cure wood logs that I use for grilling.

Our native soft brown lignite coal has the lowest BTU's of all the different types of harder coal found in the US, our soft coal BTU value isn't much higher over our native hardwood . I have a used drip oil system in the shop stove that makes cottonwood and pine burn like Ash! LOL   Cottonwood is much easier on the chain saw  chains over the hardwood to cut and I have lots of used oil !       

Darin, morning.....   Hey...  for hardwoods, try a "skip tooth chisel bit" chain...   I use them and use a normal round file on them....   Man O man they cut like a hot knife through butter....    twice as fast and seem to not dull as fast also....   One saw shop I used to deal with recommended me using them....   The next saw shop told me I couldn't use them with a round file...   the second saw shop guy had no idea what he was talking about..   DUH...  they are awesome chains......

Hello Dave, thanks for that info on that type of chain, I knew they existed, but never have gotten around to trying one yet. I was going to step it up a little and spend the extra money for one of those carbide  chains I hear people talk about. I have yet to see one, but hear they are better than Sliced Bread ! LOL

I Stihl have my .038 mag II, I bought new in 1991 when I bought all my property to deal with all the years old dead trees that were there. I can't even begin to start and think about how much wood that saw  has cut for me over the last 24 years. That saw still runs just as hard as the day I bought it, but then again, I don't lend it out either !

That's an amazing    Cute little guy !    Are biggest drawback with cutting the wood around here is. Since the wind always blows, the fine sand and dirt get stuck in the bark of the trees and it's like trying to cut sandpaper!  It would be nice if it, worked to your advantage and sharpened as you cut, instead of having to change out a dull chain sooner.

For myself I use an Oregon Laser tipped bar and I buy a box of 10 new 3/8 square cut Carlson chain from Baileys for $100.00 with shipping to the door, and that does me fine for what I need it for anymore. The lump coal here is what it is, but still more bang for the buck in the end.

I usually get an  18T side dump full from the mine about 150 mile away and that will last me two winters with running two stoves. All the oil activity in the western part of ND even brought up the coal prices from $31.50 a ton to $49.50. All that oil activity is helping everyone out here, even those who living on a fixed income and receive no kick backs from it! Go figure!