Smoker & Grilling Wood Profits?

[ReggieT]

Hey Guys,
About to drop 3 mockernut/pignut hickory tree's and 1 huge pecan.
Modest estimate on the hickory is about 4-5 cords.
The pecan should yield about 3-4 cords.
In my region I'm hearing a lot about the the swing to "green" smoking wood as opposed to the traditional seasoned.
If I can unload this straight for the stump pre-sold would be great!
What has been you guys experience at selling to Bar-B-Joints/ Restaurants, what should I ask $$$, and is there anything else I should factor in?

Thanks
Reggie

 

[Poindexter]

I can sell birch to the local wood fired pizza joint. He pays $400/cord. Going rate for seasoned birch (<20%MC) is $300/ cord, he wants 16% or drier, and he wants it split really small. I mean smaller, like 2x2 cross section, 16 " long.

I use lots of hickory and lots of pecan in my smokers. Just built another smoker today specifically for beef briskets and pastrami. My biggest smoker is a 55 gallon drum. The biggest chunks of smoking wood I can use with my charcoal are maybe 2x2x2" cubes. I use a bunch of apple wood too.

If I had a green round of smoker worthy wood I would personally cut it into 2" thick cookies with a chain saw, season until it was good and dry, and then bust my smoker chunks off the seasoned pieces with a hatchet.

I have no idea what your local market is. A "stick burner" is a smoker that runs on 16" splits of smoking wood, usually a firebox horizontally offset from the meat box. If you have a restaurant or two around you that are running stick burners they are probably running dry oak mostly and then tossing on green hickory or green pecan to make smoke on the hot oak coals. Kind of an intriguing flavor profile honestly... I wonder what a ribeye would taste like if I used green hickory instead of seasoned hickory on a bed of hot coals. I'd try green pecan too now that I think of it. Seasoned pecan is pretty mild smoke, I have no idea how it would perk up if it was green on the coals.

I do prefer seasoned as dry as possible alder for smoking salmon, but you don't have that problem.

I think the thing for you to do is ask around local. Stick burners aren't common in Texas, and harder to find outside of Texas. Don't tell them you have three cords, they will low ball you. Tell them you have about a quarter of a cord, maybe a face cord and see what you get offered.

I don't know my hickory's from each other. Pignut might be especially desirable or middle of the road in the hickory family, I don't know that one.

Check Craigslist too, the local wood fired pizza joint has the same darn add up time after time after time, but he does pay the $400 if you can meet his needs.

 

[jb6l6gc]

My biggest smoker is a 55 gallon drum.

I have a drum and am looking to start my build of a drum smoker soon, what type of design did you use?

 

[jb6l6gc]

why is seasoned so important when you soak the chips before putting them on the charcoal anyways?

 

[Stinkpickle]

why is seasoned so important when you soak the chips before putting them on the charcoal anyways?

Soaking dry chips just delays the flame up. It only moistens the surface. The guys using green wood have big smokers that flow a lot of air, so creosote is less likely to build up on the food.

 

[TedyOH]

Anyone or restaurant that uses fresh cut green wood to smoke food, especially in a large stick burner as the main source of heat, have no idea what they are doing and will probably not be in business for long. What you want coming out of your stack in a stick burner is known as "CBS" (clear blue smoke), almost invisible.

The main reason is the creosote / soot build up on the food as stink mentioned, along with the rancid taste.

Edit - found a picture of my pit.......I could talk BBQ all day long, goal is semi-retire in 10 years, buy a pit 5 times larger and move to Texas and open up a roadside BBQ joint (stick burners are very popular in Texas)

 

[Stinkpickle]

Yeah, it's weird. Some very successful competitors use green wood, exclusively. Myron Mixon ("the winningest man in bbq") comes to mind, because he only uses fresh cut peach wood. Granted, he runs his smokers hot with high air flow and uses a big water pan, so that's probably why he's able to get away with it. A lot of popular restaurants in the south burn green hickory, but again, they usually have very large, masonry pits with good draft to keep the smoke moving. It's something we can't get away with using smaller backyard cookers, especially units like kamados and ugly drum smokers. They keep the food moist by NOT moving a lot of air.

 

[Poindexter]

I have a drum and am looking to start my build of a drum smoker soon, what type of design did you use?

I just followed a bunch of links from a google search on Ugly Drum Smoker and just built one.

 

[TedyOH]

Some very successful competitors use green wood, exclusively. Myron Mixon ("the winningest man in bbq") comes to mind, because he only uses fresh cut peach wood

Yeah he doesn't count though, he does a lot of "BBQ Faux pas" plus what real BBQ Pit Master would have restaurants in NYC and Miami!!??

 

[jb6l6gc]

I just followed a bunch of links from a google search on Ugly Drum Smoker and just built one.

I meant more did you go vertical "u.d.s." Style or horizontal grill style

 

[Poindexter]

I meant more did you go vertical "u.d.s." Style or horizontal grill style

Vertical. UDS. I have seen 55 gal drums tipped horizontal, cut in half, hinged to clam shell open, and then burn through the bottom pretty quick.

If I needed that much grilling space regularly I would put in a layer of sheet metal as an ash catcher, and then a couple inches above that put in a layer of expanded metal to keep the burning coals off the relatively thin steel of the drum just so it would last longer.

I would probably build the ashpan and expanded metal grate as a single unit so I could lift it out and put it in the next clamshelled horizontal drum with minimum effort.

There are a few grills floating around up here made of oil pipeline cutoffs. About 30" in diameter and half an inch thick. You wouldn't burn through that anytime soon.

I just can't imagine having enough kids to need that much grill space regularly myself. With all four kids and the wife home I can work a 22" Webber pretty hard as a grill and think about a bigger smoker. Hard to do a packer cut brisket on a 22" Webber, but it can be done. Spare ribs for 6 on a 22" Webber isn't happening. Getting two pork shoulders in a 22" Webber is quite an achievement also I think.

FWIW I don't soak my chunks on charcoal, though I do on gas. It's a Ford v- Chevy type of argument that will never be concluded to everyone's satisfaction. If it works for you to soak your chunks, do that. It was an extra step for me, I found a way to get out of doing it.

 

[Stinkpickle]

When one Weber kettle isn't big enough, get a second one....and then a third...

 

[Poindexter]

When one Weber kettle isn't big enough, get a second one....and then a third...

I had an 18 and a 22 Webber already when I built the UDS. When I outgrow my flat top UDS I'll build another one with a domed lid so I can look at 4 packers or 8 shoulders or 8 whole chickens on one load of charcoal.

 

[Stinkpickle]

I had an 18 and a 22 Webber already when I built the UDS. When I outgrow my flat top UDS I'll build another one with a domed lid so I can look at 4 packers or 8 shoulders or 8 whole chickens on one load of charcoal.

The lid from the 22 could serve double duty.

 

[Poindexter]

The lid from the 22 could serve double duty.

Yup, but then my 22" will be uncovered. If I build a domed UDS I'll likely get another lid, paint the whole thing white, mask off some shapes and spray some blue so it looks like R2D2 and then work with the chimney some to make it look like a lightsaber handle sticking out of the top...

 

[KBCraig]

Restaurant/commercial 'Q isn't the same as what we slave over in our back yards.

Competition 'Q, just like competition chili, is meaningless in the real world. It's a bragging right, but almost no fans of the real stuff like the ribbon-winning stuff.

And I say this as a prize-winning brisket smoker.

As for moisture, all wood should be fully seasoned (two years is marginal; three is better), to dry out the resins. Water is used to slow combustion and restrict heat, but those problems are better solved by proper smoker design (side-draft, low stack, all joints sealed).

ReggieT, if you're willing to hold out for a couple of years for the payout, the professionals in your area would probably pay a premium and produce better stuff. The quick profit could go to the faddish "green wood" smokers who would pay many times the price for a bucket full of green, than the pros would pay per cord of seasoned.

 

[Poindexter]

Restaurant/commercial 'Q isn't the same as what we slave over in our back yards.

Competition 'Q, just like competition chili, is meaningless in the real world. It's a bragging right, but almost no fans of the real stuff like the ribbon-winning stuff.

I served as a general public not trained judge (1 of 30)of the Fairbanks ABA cookoff a couple years ago and I have to agree with this totally. The ribs I want and make at home would not score well in competition. if I liked chicken thighs (I don't) the ones I would make at home would not score well in competition. 'Q competition is a very artificial framework to go by. The free food was nice ;-)

 

[Stinkpickle]

I served as a general public not trained judge (1 of 30)of the Fairbanks ABA cookoff a couple years ago and I have to agree with this totally. The ribs I want and make at home would not score well in competition. if I liked chicken thighs (I don't) the ones I would make at home would not score well in competition. 'Q competition is a very artificial framework to go by. The free food was nice ;-)

True that. Competition bbq must meet very specific criteria. It shows how well a competitor controls the cook, and everything is set up for just one bite. Either way, if a judge tasted creosote on an entry, the score would tank. That's why it's even more impressive when somebody wins using green wood. I would never risk it, though.

 

[Longstreet]

why is seasoned so important when you soak the chips before putting them on the charcoal anyways?

Only newbs use wood chips. And soaking them really doesn't do anything, especially when you do it for 15 mins before putting them on the smoker. If you go the charcoal route, you need to use sizable chunks of wood.

Anyone or restaurant that uses fresh cut green wood to smoke food, especially in a large stick burner as the main source of heat, have no idea what they are doing and will probably not be in business for long. What you want coming out of your stack in a stick burner is known as "CBS" (clear blue smoke), almost invisible.

The main reason is the creosote / soot build up on the food as stink mentioned, along with the rancid taste.

Edit - found a picture of my pit.......I could talk BBQ all day long, goal is semi-retire in 10 years, buy a pit 5 times larger and move to Texas and open up a roadside BBQ joint (stick burners are very popular in Texas)

View attachment 173389

Right on. Maybe a small number of pros can get away with it but green wood won't ever be mainstream.

Nice Lang 48" by the way. Lang is the only real smoker to look at. I hope to get my 36" this year. We are so lucky in Georgia - we have so many of the major smokers built in this state it's crazy.

 

[Longstreet]

OP is just a few hours away from me and shares the same general topography as Atlanta. Mockernut hickory is very common around the base of the Appalachian mountains. I don't think there is going to be a lot of money there. For example, we have an individual north of Atlanta who sells full cords of pure hickory for $200. Buy three and he delivers for free pretty much anywhere in the metro area. He probably would charge more if you needed it split extra thin etc. but that's the base rate. (broken link removed to http://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/grd/5396006389.html)

The Pecan on the other hand....that's a little more rare. Pecan is just a species in the Hickory family but considered different enough for smoking that people separate it out. If you cannot find a buyer for it, I'll make you an offer for a cord. That's about all I could handle at one time in my truck.

 

[Jags]

I like vertical smokers. My homebuilt:

 

[Longstreet]

We don't need no stinkin' propane around here!

 

[Jags]

We don't need no stinkin' propane around here!

It will do charcoal also, but for jerky the need to maintain constant temps below "cooking" temps is vastly more control-able with propane. And I really don't care to blow a 60 pounds batch of jerky.

 

[TedyOH]

It will do charcoal also, but for jerky the need to maintain constant temps below "cooking" temps is vastly more control-able with propane. And I really don't care to blow a 60 pounds batch of jerky.

Very true.... I can't really do anything below 200 deg

 

[Jags]

Very true.... I can't really do anything below 200 deg

I can consistently hold 150F.