Safe wood

Welcome to the forum, BigAl, and thanks for your input!

Thanks BigAl-i always heard that one should stay away from scraps from the lumberyerd, nice to know why.

Thanks BigAl I got some cherry wood from a guy at work. I cut into small chunks amd did your micro wave process....worked great thanks again and welcome!!!

Hey Big Al, "Welcome to the forum" and thanks for the info. Nice to hear facts from a man in-the-know. I don't have access to lumber scraps and will now "pass" if given the opportunity.

Question -- would these same concerns apply to using commercial charcoal made from hardwood lumber scraps? I haven't used it for a few years, but if I recall correctly Cowboy lump charcoal contained lumber scraps.

I do not know much on how charcoal is made but I would not worry myself. It is made for use with food were lumber is not.

Hey BigAl, and welcome. That microwave tip is a great one! Thanks!

It is a good process if you adhere to the 'rules' BigAl mentioned. I learned a sore lesson that was not supposed to be a lesson in smoking woods. I once tried to dry a woodcarving that I had applies a very strong oxidant to.. wood bleach.. After bleaching the wood and using vinegar to stop the action of the bleach.. well I wanted to dry the wood reasonably quickly so I could get on with the rest of the carving so I chose to microwave it. I did put it on a relatively low setting.. I didn't have the rotary table in mine.. and microwaved for a few minutes.. saw steam coming out. I did this a few times and it still had steam coming out.. so I mwaved it once more for about a minute at high.. THAT was a mistake. First, I didn't wait for a minute or two between sessions to allow the steam to escape.. just figured with steam coming out it was still wet enough to keep going.

I found out something interesting.. a microwave cooks from the inside out.. I smelled smoke and my nice carving was charred in some of the deeper external parts and whenI tried to remove the char.. I found it to be deeper than just the surface.. OhOh.. Now that great bleaching process was all for naught.. I had to ultimately paint my carving.

For anyone interested.. go to my picture site and look at the Polar Bear.. The wood is called Basswood, common in the Northeast. It is a creamy white wood and can be bleached to a very nice natural white. But, as mentioned, I had to paint this guy to cover the char. :-< I can laugh at it now.. but, I was pretty mad at myself that day.

Old post, but just what I was looking for. I do woodworking as a hobby and have a bunch of leftover scraps of hardwood. Was thinking of using them in the smoker, but then ran across this old post. Think I'll save the scraps for the fire pit instead.

Really is amazing what you can find in this forum.

Thanks BigAl!

quote:

Originally posted by AndyJ:
...
Really is amazing what you can find in this forum.

Thanks BigAl!

Good point, I haven't added it up, but you'd think with 100,000+ posts we MIGHT have covered a lot of topics.

Glad you found what you were looking for.

Russ

[QUOTE]Originally posted by BigAl:
As I read through the forum trying to learn there are a few posts that worry me. People talk abought using hard wood lumber scraps to cook with. I dry lumber for a living. When you dry hardwood on a large scale you overdry the lumber by 1%. Then at the end put raw steam from a boiler into the lumber kiln and inject 1% water back into the wood. This sofens the wood to make it machine easyer. This steam has some nasty chemicals in it to protect the boiler. QUOTE]

According to my nephew, who has a Master's in biology, steam is pure water...nothing but two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom...so if the wood has only been kiln dried, and not treated in some other fashion, it seems it would be safe to use in a smoker.

For quite a few years I managed the utilities dept. for Pulp and paper mill. We produced steam at 800# and 750 degrees. We constantly monitered the "quality" of the steam in terms of how much sodium and misc. other chemicals were in it. Now these measurements were in the parts per million, so very small. In a wood kiln drying process the steam temperature will be much less and in all likelyhood will have a greater amount of "boiler chemical" carryover. So BigAl is correct. Whether or not these are something that would affect the smoke flavor is going to be very subjective.....Dick

After reading RM's post I did some more research.

Steam is pure water vapor. Two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Nothing more. Water vapor is invisible.

Other chemicals may be pushed along through the steam pipe and atomized at the outlet end of the pipe and be present in the "mist" caused by cooling water vapor.

Bottom line is probably one should not use furniture scraps for smoking unless you know where they come from, and how, and if, they were treated.

SMOKIN,
Not to be too techie, you need to get a book on internal boiler water chemistry. The way a boiler works is that you need to treat the water with chemicals to protect the "wetted" side of the boilers. Eg. the internals. There are very sopisticated metal parts in the steam drum that are intended to separate the water from the steam before it goes out into the steam piping system. They are not 100% efficient so some water with chemicals carry out into the system. Some of these chemicals are intended to protect that piping from corroding. These chemicals at some level always are in the end use steam.....Dick

Interesting discussion and maybe I misunderstood but I thought he said that?

"Other chemicals may be pushed along through the steam pipe and atomized at the outlet end of the pipe and be present in the "mist" caused by cooling water vapor."

I think we're trying to miss the big point. Regardless of the exact method, there are chemicals involved in the process and if you smoke with hardwood that's been dried via this method you RISK potential issues.

You guys can argue the How, but the issue is I wouldn't suggest doing it until a scientis can confirm to me that all hardwood is chemical free.

Hardwood lumber scraps vs regular oak or maple, for example.

I'm with SmokinOkie. As little wood as you need in one of Cookshack's electric smokers (2-4oz per cook), and how inexepensive a box of wood from Cookshack or even Charcoalstore.com can be. You are only talking 50 cents or less per smoke on average for cost of wood. Why would you want to take a chance with possibly unsafe wood on that $15-$$$$ load of meat?