NI Suppliers of fuel

[Curlie028]

Hi, is Vic there? (and any other members from NI)

Where do you get your charcoal and wood from?
Can you recommend any local suppliers or do I have to buy off the internet?

Cheers,
Curlie

[Vic.]

I buy my wood from gardenandleisure.com I smoke using gas, so I never really bother with charcoal. Gardenandleisure will send you 2 bags of chunks to N.I. for £3.99 delivery. Total £19.99.....they threw in a sweety my last order

http://www.gardenandleisure.com/product ... unks_.html

I've phoned most of the firewood suppliers in N.I and the only smoking wood they sell is beech. Most suppliers sell a mixture of wood. Your best bet is to go to a sawmill and ask the manager if he could seperate out a bag of oak or somethng native like that.

they sell lots of weber assessories too

[Vic.]

http://store.creativegardens.net/store/ ... and/Weber/

there's another one I found a while back, i'll try look for it now

[Curlie028]

Cheers Vic,

If my maths is right, Weber "Chips" are the same price from Dobbies. They sell them at £6 for 3lb and they are on my doorstep, so no delivery charge.

Big question then is, what is the cooking difference between Chips and Chunks?
Apols if that is a stupid elementary question.

Curlie

[Vic.]

never tried chips, I think they would burn away very quick. If you set a small cast iron pan on top of your charcoal and put a chunk on it should smoke nice and slow. If you put it directly on the charcoal it will burn away quicker and most of the smoke will be wasted. hth

also, you only really need to smoke food (using hickery wood) for the first hour, you can over smoke it easily.

Dobbies looks like a good spot

[Steve]

With chips, I find it's best to put them in a foil parcel with some holes in it and lay that on top of your charcoal. I would never soak them as I think this just gives you a damp wood taste.

Adie used chips a lot on his WSM and he used to just throw a handful in every so often.

I use chunks that are between half and whole fist sized, I don't put these in anything, I nestle them in my unlit charcoal and then put my hot coals on top when cooking minion method. If using fully lit, I will just put my chunks directly on the charcoal.

While I agree with Vic that it's easy to oversmoke, I don't agree with the one hour thing. The way I set my cooker up it will generally smoke lightly for a few hours, afterthat it will burn clean. It depends on rate of smoke, you're looking for a thin wisp of blue smoke, not white smoke. Meat will only take smoke until it reaches a certain temperature anyway and different sized cuts will take more or less smoke too.

The key thing is to experiment but always er on the side of caution and build up to a smoke level you like.

[JEC]

As steve said a foil pouch or you can buy a smoker box which can also be used for pellets which are easy to get hold off and you (I) can't tell the difference, not even between chunks and pellets. Barbequers delight is the main brand of pellets and offer at least 10 different woods.

When thinking about smoking most smoke is adsorbed in the first few hours of the cook, I only ensure I have enough smoke wood/pellets for the first hour with ribs and chicken and go to about 4 for pork and beef, anymore and more sensitive pallets complain about it being too smokey, also remember not to go over the top with smoke, just add a little more next time, you'll soon get the balance right for you and your guests.