Oak ?

[jasonz]

Cooked with oak this weekend, super dense stuff. It was cut early summer '14 and seasoned to 17%. Had a good bed of coals, but each time i added wood it smoked (a little gray) for maybe 10min.

Should i want to clean this smoke up, if yes, how? It did help when i cut splits down to about the size of a red bull can - but still smoked a little gray after adding wood.

[Rodcrafter]

I use the smaller pieces like you described. And you can leave the door of the FB open for those pieces to catch fire if you feel the need to reduce its effects.


Making memories.

[Miketheforester]

I have had a lot of issue white oak family of wood smoking sometimes to the point of nearly snuffing my fire out. I definitely like to have oak split and seasoned for towards a year. Anything in the white oak family has tyloses (probably misspelled) which clogs the wood pores making it hold moisture for an extremely long time, hence why only white oak is used in whiskey barrels.

[Puff]

Here where I live we have loads of oak...many types and when hurricane Sandy came and knocked down too many to cut, I just started to cut and split...that stuff is now two yrs old and when I add some splits to a burning fire, I get about 2-3 minutes of denser smoke but it lights up very very quickly

Rodcrafters idea to leave the door open...works great for me and it only takes 1-2 minutes and it's running very well

[jasonz]

Thanks for the replies. I will try keeping the door open for a few min.

I did put wood on warming box but that did not show much improvement.

[Puff]

That would probably not dry out wood with higher moisture content to a point that it becomes well seasoned. FYI if I do that also, the wood starts to ignite.

There were times in our house when the wood would burn... but you can look and listen to the steaming or oozing on the ends. Fire was ok for heat but not optimal. I can easily see only a clear wave of distortion in the air pattern coming from the top of the stack on my rf smoker after the first 10-12 minutes of a newly added split.

Always knew it but never took the initiative to store the wood piles so the wood stayed dry, especially since it was more of an ornamental than real need to supply heat or food. Now that we've got the smokers running, I've got to take my wood pile much more seriously ;)

[Rodcrafter]

[Clover Ridge Smokers]

I use a lot of Oak and have found the best results to be when I use small split and preheat them before adding them to the fire. The top of the FB works great for preheating splits.