johndeereg
ArboristSite Member
Maybe a dumb questions, but are there any types of wood that you can't use for cooking out over? Is hemlock ok?
true dat........In my opinion never cook directly over anything of the pine family(if your cooking in a pan, that's different). They produce soot as mentioned above. I know southern yellow pine will coat your food with black soot that can make you sick. Red pine burns hot enough to melt aluminum "pudgy pie" makers, OOPS.... If you let it get down to just the coals , I would guess it would be alright to use almost any kind of wood.
I'd probably steer away from black and honey locust for the same reason, sooty I suspect.
I've used TOH a lot in my pizza oven without trouble. That isn't direct cooking over the flames, but rather cooking adjacent to live fire. Never noticed any stink from it. Some of the TOH trees seem to stink and some don't. The ones I used happened to not be stinkers.Tree of Heaven...and probably any other Sumac...
But we have to determine WHAT you mean by cooking over. If it means over live fire in a open pan=> then I go after above rule. If it means a closed pot => I don't care what wood it is. If it means having a traditional wood stove in you kitchen => I don't care what wood it is.
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