burning wood in an ECB

[tasunkawitko]

lately, i've been thinking about burning wood in my ECB rather than charcoal.

we have a lot of cottonwood up here, which makes a decent bed of coals, but it burns fast and i am not sure what the value is of the smoke produced. another alternative is to buy the larger chunks of hickory at whatever-mart, light them, burn them down to coals and use them for cooking and smoking.

any reason not to try this? has anyone tried it? how were results?

thanks in advance for all replies -

ron

 

[greazy]

Thanks for bringing this up. I've tried, and failed. Gets too hot. You might be onto something w a wood that burns w less heat than mesquite (my experiments).

Hopefully someone has succeeded and will share w us.

 

[tasunkawitko]

anyone????

 

[bigsteve]

I guess one of us will have to try it and write up a review.

 

[bbq addict]

I usually start with lump for a small bed of coals then I add the whole chunks or small branches as necessary. The main issue I have had is ash builds up a lot faster with wood.

To work around this, you can either put a small grate in the bottom of the coal pan or use a slotted metal spoon and pull the hot coals to the top. I've had pretty good results...

 

[tasunkawitko]

thanks, bbq addict. i might give it a try here in the coming weeks (raining pretty good right now) and will certianly report on results. as i've mentioned, cottonwood is in abundance up here - it burns pretty fast but makes a good bed of coals. another option is to simply buy a bag of hickory chnks, which are pretty good-sized but not quite as "good" as using logs.

 

[desertlites]

I made a pre burner to fire up my wood-whether pecan squite etc-get it going and close lid-when it starts to ash over I add to the ecb-works great-had a pic out there but prolly lost in the crash of 08.