smoking wood

[dono]

funny observation I made today, I went out looking for a couple of bags of wood chips to smoke some turkeys for new years. this time of year it's VERY hard to find anything todo with BBQing let alone smoking in the local stores. If I want to smoke during the winter I have to stock pile as many bags of lump charcoal as I can in the fall because it's nowere to be found come winter, they just don't restock till spring.... anyway I deagress

so I'm looking for wood chips, I find masquite and hickery in 2 lb bags for 4.29 and I find 1 lb bags of apple for 5.99 now here`s the funny part I live in Quebec, we have thousands of apple orchards there are towns who live on the income of the apple market, but you would be very hard set to find and hickery or masquet trees up here so more then double the price for a local product as opposed to a product the was probly shipped up from the southern states is just damn funny to me

hope I explained this well enough

o.k. I`m done venting you can go back to smoking now

 

[shellbellc]

I understand completely! This summer I need to stock up, we go down the shore on the weekends and pass many peach and apple orchards...I plan on acquiring some samples this summer!!

Have you priced maple up there? I would think that would be abundant!

 

[dono]

I never tried maple, someone told me ( and it may have been on this forum ) that only some types of maple are good for smokeing and since I wouldn`t know one maple tree type from another I`ll just stick to useing maple syrup on my pancakes

 

[teacup13]

when i was living in ontario, i used sugar maple all the time but i believe the stuff you get in the bags are another kind of maple(which i have used off of my trees in my yard which are not sugar maple...still tasted good)

i took advantage of the after season stuff on sale.... got 3 bags of maple (82cents each),3 bags of apple(same price), 3bags each of mesqite and hickory (70 cents each) and two bags of jack daniels - 1.20 each...was a good haul..lol

charcoal on the other hand didnt go on sale and now have to pay premium prices..lol

 

[richtee]

Never had a bad maple. Sugar, red, silver... all good. And you need to get out to the orchards and lay in a face cord of trimmings, culled trees.

 

[richtee]

I am considering making a "charcoal maker". The prices are crazy! I can walk around my yard and pick up a cord of hardwoods, cherry, apple, maple and oak. And the ocassional pear and apricot too I think.

 

[dono]

dig a pit, make a large fire of your chosen hard wood, then bury the fire and let it smolder till it goes out, you have just made charcoal :-)

 

[fla-gypsy]

The winter time wood shortage is very evident here also. I could only find Southwestern Mesquite here in the Southeast, surrounded by thousands of Oak and Hickory trees. Decided to make my own Oak chunks, turned out very nice.