Someone responded to one of my MP posts last night (loose stacks at my roadside stand) inquiring if I sold cherry for smoking. Naturally I said yes because I make bundles of cherry and maple for that purpose. He then asked if he could buy logs because he was picky about the size of the wood he uses to smoke and wanted to cut and split himself. I told him I cut my cherry to 16" and stack the rounds waiting for orders to split and bundle. He's interested in buying the rounds and wants 10-20. I'd like to get a new customer and give him a decent value but I don't want to give away my supplies that I sell for good money as bundles. What would be an appropriate price for rounds that average between 12"-18" in diameter?
I wouldn't give in much due to the fact he might be a new customer, but it will be one that you don't make any money from. People buying wood for personal smoking/BBQing need very little in a year so the income protentional will be very limited. I used to separate out cherry and hickory for BBQers. But no one was willing to pay more for hickory and cherry than the red & white oak so not it just goes in the pile. One of my golfing buddies has a very high end restaurant and asked me about supplying hickory. He would use a face cord/month year round. But it must be in very small pieces and after talking with him deemed it not worth while. He was getting it for years from an old guy for $ 125/face delivered and for all the extra work it is not even close to enough. I get $90/face for people picking it up here.
I would estimate the amount of splits you will get from those rounds, estimate your selling costs & reduce your cost by whatever you feel comfortable with. You will have no time in splitting or bundling. Wholesale vs retail.
I sold half cord green oak rounds to a customer few years back. He had inquired about buying cheaper than the same only in seasoned split form. He later bought a few bundles of cherry for a friend who smoked meats. I had a couple cord of cherry and dollar signs rang in my head. Tried selling smoke wood on CL/FBM with no success. It later went for wood bundle fodder. Told my customer if he wanted certain species..ie hickory, maple etc. for such i could accomodate. I think i charged $25 for three bundles last time. My advice: figure how many bundles you could make and sell at that price.
I am just getting into smoking and am frugal. The bags I can get at my local store are $4-8 for a bag that at most is 5 lbs of chips. I decided I would give it a go myself to try and save a little coin. To get it to usable size from my rounds I will do it for myself but wouldn't mess with doing it for other people because it was time consuming. Something nice to do for myself on my spare time just to say I do it but to make it a sideline it just wouldn't pencil out. I also don't have access to a lot of the known smoking woods (hickory, maple, cherry, apple, pecan), but when I did mine I was very happy with the taste/smell that I got from the Ash I chunked up. I've used it on jerky, ribs, and chicken so far and really like it, a lot like the lighter smoke flavor you get from cherry or apple.
Maybe a stupid question, but when you're using wood for bbq, does it need to be <20% mc or do you want it to be higher mc to create more smoke?
I am a proficient BBQer myself. You don't need much smoke wood. A chunk the size of a baseball is enough, certainly no more than the size of a softball. You can over do it and it gets acrid. Meat does not take smoke after the first 90 min, when the smoke wood is gone don't add more. I like apple because it is mild, Hickory is pretty potent so don't use much. Small limb wood I normally would never pick up works good because the bark is tight and holds moisture so it doesn't dry out too much. Wood the diameter of a golf ball 4-5" long works good.
I had a stack of rounds a couple of years ago. When people showed up to buy split wood they ended up buying the rounds instead. For $20 less per cord than I was selling the split wood for it was worth it to me not to have to split and restack it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Maybe this person wants to split their own because they are going to resale it. Like firewood bandit said it does not take much wood for smoking. I use even smaller pieces then he does when I smoke meat.
Charge as much as you can. If a business isn't run like a business it won't be viable for very long. This customer won't die if he doesn't get some cherry, and he isn't entitled to your wood. I think he is being somewhat of a middleman, as I agree with what was stated above....you really don't need that much smoke. I don't personally believe in some weird new age moral thing, where there is too much being charged for firewood. Take care of the elderly, especially widows and those that have disposable income for such things can pay.
The Ash that I experimented with this fall was from a fresh cut tree. I did think that the wives tale you can burn Ash without seasoning was kind of disproven with my smoke sessions because over both charcoal and in my gas smoker it was just right split from the round moist enough to not just ignite but smoke whereas I wouldn't have wanted wood to act like that for heat or campfires and sizzle and smoke everyone out. That being said Ash is the only wood I've smoked with that I cut, split, and chunked, and I know it has naturally low moisture content so I don't know with other homemade smoke woods if they would require some more dry down than what my Ash did?
I have the same smoker. 18" Seeing yours gives me a hankering to fire it up! I have 4 double-racks of babybacks in the freezer.
I use mostly Cherry & I like to dry it down a bit. I am not a bbq/smoking champion. I have talked to several people that bbq/smoke in competitions & done a lot of reading about it. Some folks want the bark off because they say it can make the meat taste bad, others say it doesn’t matter. Cherry is usually in low 40’s to upper 30’s moisture percentage wise when cut green. I don’t use Oak/Hickory much because it is too easy to overpower the meat. I like to watch Steven Raichlen when he is on PBS. He uses all kinds of different types of smokers & variations of smoking. Steven Raichlen Maybe go & checkout the Smokehouse where the connoisseurs are. I am sure that there are folks there that have used several varieties of wood to cook with. The Smokehouse
Believe it or not, I sometimes over do it. I have all 3 Weber Smokey Mountains, the 22.5", 18" and the mini one. Also did some mods on them too like an extra vent and the stainless steel door.
Where’s SKEETER McCLUSKEY ? Someone must’ve left a maul in the intake of a wood chipper….. I’m sure once it’s fixed, he will be along for his 2 cents.
