THWARTED!

[den]

Barbecues Galore didn't get the Weber smokers in! Next week, now. Poop.

Comments

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Hardwood won't be a problem, but I can't find any info on using Eucalypts. What do you know about Ironbark and River Red Gums?

[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

According to the All About Smoke Woods (http://virtualweberbullet.com/woods.html) page, eucalyptus isn't a good choice for smoking. I would assume that any eucalypt would be a bad choice.

Smoking is a process of cooking food at low temperatures for a long time in a smoky environment. The smoke penetrates the food and is a major flavoring, and it does this over hours and hours of cooking. So you don't want a smoke that is too strong, or has lots of creosote or burned-up volatile compounds.

That's why you would never smoke with cedar (or any other evergreen), but you can make cedar plank salmon, because planking is a quick cooking process.

Good wood to smoke with is hard, burns slowly and steadily without flaring up or getting too hot, and produces mild, pleasant smoke. It doesn't have to be "sweet" or "good-smelling" smoke--Alder smoke to me smells like a structure fire, but it makes fantastic smoked fish.

Any of the hardwoods in the rose family are safe bets: apple, apricot, peach, pear, plum, quince, cherry. Likewise I would guess any of the hardwoods in the walnut family (juglandaceae) would be good--pecan is my favorite smoking wood.

Happily, you only need 2-6 fist-sized chunks of wood per smoking run. I bought bags of alder, pecan, apple, and hickory when I bought my bullet years ago and I haven't run out yet.

This Barbacues Galore place, are they planning on selling smoking wood?

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info.

I don't know if they'll be selling wood but I can ask. They sell all sorts of BBQ supplies, and now that they are selling smokers I would presume wood will be on sale too.