Anyone tried to smoke with willow oak? I picked up some free Willow Oak from a house down the street. They are giving away hundreds of pounds of free Willow Oak so I picked up about 100 pounds and hope I can use it for smoking meat. They were doing a lot of tree trimming.
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Yes you can use it to smoke with just make sure it's season. -
My suggestion when trying new woods is try it with a cheap meat, I like to use chicken legs or thighs as my guinea pigs with an 'unknown' wood. They have a mild flavor that will highlight the smoke flavor so you can really taste its effect, plus they're really cheap so if they get ruined you're not out much for the experience.Comment
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I think any hard wood will work but I also think Huskee has it right don't throw a 8 lb. prime rib on and find out its bad
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Is a Willow Oak anything like a scrub oak?Comment
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Thanks all for the advice. I have a ton of it now! Need to wait a long time to season. But, heck, it's freeComment
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Agree that you should test.
Willow oak is classified as red oak, which is what they use on the California coast for Santa Maria BBQ (Tri-Tip), so it should give you excellent results once its been seasoned.
Jim
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One other thing. California coast is windy a lot of the year. They use the red oak (aka live oak) in open BBQ rigs. They aren't sealed up. Could be a lot of smoky flavor if you use just the coals in something like a Kamado.
Make sure you test it first.
Best regards,
Jim
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One of my co-workers lucked out recently. There was a very large fire in our area. He has 40 acres and the fire headed straight towards his house. Because he had two hours warning and had defensible space around his house he was one of the fortunate ones to have his house still standing. However, he has 30 acres of oak (Valley, Blue and a little Black) that he has to clear. Cal Fire advised him that the underbrush has to go if he wants to stay safe in the future. I started helping him today and will be for the next few months. He knocked trees down with a tractor and went go to work cutting it up. He took the big stuff for splitting and his fireplace. I cut the smaller stuff for my BBQ's. The wood is literally charcoal on the bark but still very green in the middle. It is going to take over a year to season and the rain or a pressure washer will be used to get the soot off of the outside. I'm betting that when ready, the fire will have helped clean the wood of it's bark but more importantly, knowing where it came from and what it represents will make for some fantastic smoking in the years to come.Comment
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My favorite test for any unfamiliar wood is to light a small piece of it to see how the smoke smells. Then burn some of it in the firepit to see how it smells and burns in log form.Comment
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