School me on grapevine wood for smoking

[wahoowad]

I have decent quantities of oak, hickory, maple and cherry but keep seeing these large, shaggy grapevines in our woods. Grapevine is listed as a wood that can be used but I guess I am curious if it is worth the effort to harvest and use it.

Truth is my palate isn't sophisticated enough (yet) to discern which wood I have used to smoke different things... I usually use wood in moderation and it just tastes good when I eat my BBQ and I don't really think about the different flavors, I just enjoy that explosion of taste.

So is harvesting some of this grapevine worth the effort?

 

[hoity toit]

Well, try it on a small piece of meat and see. I would like to know as well.

HT

 

[wahoowad]

How do I know when the sap is down? Currently all the leaves have fallen. I can try and harvest some pieces further up the vine or possibly look for some sections that are already dead.

 

[bluewhisper]

I haven't tried it yet. You might be doing your trees a favor if you cut the vines, anyway. I've seen them kill whole stands of trees.

 

[motocrash]

I have wild fox grapes in my woods and have been thinking of trying it too.What I've read on grape is that you need to go light with it or it can get acrid quick.Here's what a place called deejays smoke pit has to say ( look that up,great list of woods)

Tart,aromatic,similar to fruit wood.The flavor is milder and sweeter than hickory.
Great on most white or pink meats,chicken,turkey,pork and fish

Bill

 

[wahoowad]

Check out the moisture these fresh cut wild grape vines are leaching out

 

[wahoowad]

I can harvest a good bit of this wild grapevine (specifically it is summer grape Vitaceae Vitis if you are doing your research) and would be interested in a smokewood swap with somebody who can provide me either pecan or mesquite. I'm doing pretty good on all the other smokewoods that I would want.

 

[crackman]

I have decent quantities of oak, hickory, maple and cherry but keep seeing these large, shaggy grapevines in our woods. Grapevine is listed as a wood that can be used but I guess I am curious if it is worth the effort to harvest and use it.

Truth is my palate isn't sophisticated enough (yet) to discern which wood I have used to smoke different things... I usually use wood in moderation and it just tastes good when I eat my BBQ and I don't really think about the different flavors, I just enjoy that explosion of taste.

So is harvesting some of this grapevine worth the effort?

It all depends on the age of the vine and if it's still producing decent grapes, if it is producing grapes and not over 10-20yrs, it'll be fine, but grape vine wood can be a bit bitter and change the flavour of the meat to almost unpalatable, only if you go really hot, if your long smoking (4+hrs), start off low (no smoke) @ 55°c for half hour to an hour, increase to 65° with pre soaked chips for an 1-2hrs, then remove smoke and continue increasing the temp gradually until your at your normal smoking temp, see how the flavour suits you. If it's too light, next time increase that 1-2hrs to 3, if you need smoke that long. I've been using it for 5yrs, never had any issues, I have 400kg of it left in left for hot smoking, but grind it up for cold smoking dust too.

 

[mike243]

You know this thread is 7 years old?

 

[bradger]

if you harvest them just be careful, my brother has a lot of grape vines around his property, he used to harvests it and make baskets and other things with it. while he was doing it onetime he started cutting up some poison ivy.