CSG and any (hardwood)sawdust

[ArtL]

Hi all,
new to posting here but have gained invaluable knowledge by browsing for some time this excellent site and forum thanks all ,,, such that I am now confident in home made bacon (isnt it delicious !) from our home produced G Old Spots ,,,

The next stage is smoked bacon (and later, other smoked goodies)
I have tried lots of amateurish smoke smoldering things without much success, ok for hands on with perforated bean cans etc. but not for long unattended sessions, so I am now interested in the ProQ thing, it has good reviews [and lots of postings so not sure where to park this question ! ] . However I am unsure if it will work with _all_ sawdusts ( ie those made by me ! ) or if it needs the propriatory/supplied sawdust. EG.> as supplied does the sawdust contain smouldering agents such as saltpetre.
I am a dinasaur you see (!) I remember school chemistry, secret writing and cigarettes that burn unattended in the ashtray with added sp., whereas roll-your-own dont cos the ryo tobacco doesnt have sp. in it

In other words will fine beech/oak dust well dried work, or do I need a wee bit of saltpetre in it ?

[probbq]

The dust we supply contains no chemicals and I wouldn't suggest adding any. As long as you get your own dust to the right consistancy, it should work fine (might take a little of trial and error though).

[culinairezaken]

hi,

i seem to be out of bought sawdust every time. i'm now making my own on the wood turning late with a woodplaner. (the grater type).

don't know if it's really safe but it works quite well.

i dry the wooddust just before smoking in the oven at 150'C for about 30 min.

[wheels]

Art, Welcome.

You don't say where you are? But, anyway the CSG is the best piece of smoking kit since sliced bread - it's fantastic - worth every penny.

If you want to produce your own dust, fair play to you.

The only caveat would be if you are selling the produce, when you would need to check whether the wood needs to be food grade. Yes, strangely enough, there is such a thing.

Phil

[ArtL]

Hi Ian, Culin, Phil, thanks for your comments,
I am ( I was!) in the process of writing a thankyou and explanatory reply to be posted tomorrow as it is way past my bedtime but Phil has delayed me a tad ! ,,,
It was not so much the matter of added SP that concerned me, nor worried me, it was the knowing thereof in a diy sense. I had also been thinking over my (homebrew) beer that if an agent like SP was added would that have been a necessary ingredient on the supplied dust being that the dust was not a food (ie. I dont often munch on sawdust LOL!) Phil caught that one
No I wont be selling it, many things are worth every penny but I once built my own astronomical telescope, I now know how, but if I were to do it again I would buy one !!

anyway, more in a minute(or day) on this diy lark ,,,

Art.

[ArtL]

Well, this is as far as I got in my "considered" threadreply before I responded to Phil, so any un-polished or grammatical misspeelings are all to do with the hour of the night (2am in SW England) :
,,,,,,,,l,
May I add a few extra thoughts with no ill will or malice intended ( these things are often difficult by word and by someone unknown like me who has not appeared before !)

Quote > The dust we supply contains no chemicals

but I am sure of course you meant no added/extra chemicals, for which assurance I thank you, more about that lower down, everything does contain chemicals - just a problem sometimes sorting the good ones from the , errr not so good ,,,

Quote> and I wouldn't suggest adding any. As long as you get your own dust to the right consistancy, it should work fine

Thank you Ian for that guidance, -

quote> (might take a little of trial and error though).

Hehee, therein be the rub :!)
But that is fair enough, you have tried it, now it is up to me to try it !
In a forum like this it is good to know how one does things oneself, I mean, if we wanted pork we could go to the supermarket, but we could also do it ourselves ( we do !)
if we want bacon we could go to the supermarket but now, thanks to this forum, we know how to do it ourselves,
if we want real smoked vitals we could go to a real smokehouse or to the supermarket for some liquid smoke , or we could diy
I do like the idea of making my own lum reek (that's an ethnic Scot remark ) :-!)

culinairezaken Good to know someone is sucessfully producing their own ( I have a usefull area of beech woodland waiting to be pressed into service !)

gnight

[ArtL]

For Phil:
Quote> since sliced bread

tut tut sliced ? nah all me own, sometimes sourdough cultured from ..... well actually, a supermarket flour , oh wo thrice woo is me for admitting to it !

Now I really am going to bed

[Richierich]

Do you have a name for your Sourdough?

Phil calls his cyril, in case you missed it in another thread.

[wheels]

Nice one!

There's a guy on another forum who's doing the same thing:

http://overthegate.myfreeforum.org/sutr ... mer#205184

It may be worth keeping an eye on his posts for info.

Phil

(Sorry to have ruined your beauty sleep!)

[ArtL]

Rich, yes I did miss that, look just because I am posting here doesnt mean that I am mad as well !! But I expect it helps No I have never named my cultures, not yet ,,

Phil, thanks interesting good find. A bit odd that he got such a fast burn with his homemade dust. What controls the burn rate I wonder, moisture content and partical size perhaps.

[ArtL]

(Sorry to have ruined your beauty sleep!)

Ah, only just now seen your small print, - well my beauty is legendary and will survive this slight hiatus I'm sure lol

gnight

[wheels]

I think the short burn would be due to particle size. Anecdotal evidence suggests that if the dust is moist it just doesn't burn, in which case people usually dry it out in an oven for a while.

Phil

[saucisson]

Richie supplied me with some oak to try that was too coarse (as we suspected) so I ground it in a coffee grinder until it was the same weight per volume as the supplied stuff and it worked perfectly. The coarser stuff worked perfectly well in a forced air device.

[ArtL]

coffee grinder

What a good (brave even!) idea

do you remember what that weight per vol was ?

[Richierich]

I need to grind some more up this weekend, only got 1 packet of the bought stuff left, planning on smoking some chillies.