Floating ideas and looking for tips. Getting into smoking food and realizing 2 lbs of chips cost from $5 to $10 depending on species and brands. I'm a tightwad and want another option. A guy I know has a wood chipper that I could use. A-chips out of this should work, right? B-does it have to be seasoned before chipping (I'm thinking green and stored would be prone to fungal growth)? C-if splitting rounds or splits down to fit in chipper, 4" or less, should the only wood used for smoking be the heart wood and not sap wood/bark. D-anyone ever smoked with ash wood chips? E-how good will maple flavor be if using a maple variety other than sugar maple, like silver-red-amur?
You can chip it green. I bet it dries really quickly. I’ve used everything from sawdust and noodles to cookies and bigger chunks. I’d make sure there wasn’t any moss or fungus on the wood first before I cut or chipped it
I never bothered with a chipper. With a Weber I simply cooked on wood. Right out of my stacks! Slicing cookies out of limb wood works nice on top of charcoal also. Couple ideas. Then I found pellet smokers. All she wrote. Have fun.
I like to use small splits and chunks but chips are good too. Definitely ok to chip fresh cut, just don’t seal air tight right away. And I prefer no bark at all. I remove it from every piece. Heartwood is also preferred but rarely do I get to be that picky. When I was processing mountains of apple, I saved 55 gal drums of it, but now I get more cherry. It’s not big enough to be selective. Since I only use oak for beef, I can get center splits.