Apple wood pucks

[Alanfromwis]

Hi all,
  I have experiminted with 2 different process for making apple wood pucks from a tree grown in my back yard. So far used once smoking 2 pork shoulders for pulled pork. If any interest out there, I can add details.
  Thanks, Alanfromwis

[mikecorn.1]

By all means. Details are always nice. ;D


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[OU812]

Dont froget the pictures.  ;D

[Alanfromwis]

Hi again,
  I will give some details of my efforts to use apple wood from my back yard. We have an apple tree with 3 trunks that 1 went down in a windstorm. It was a little over 4" thick on the big end. I cut it off at about the 2" ( pucks are 2 3/16" )point & put on my electric miter saw. Clamped wood stopper to 1/2" as guide for thickness and cut off pucks to about 3"point. On pucks from trunk more than 2 3/16", I used a wood chisel with a brisquette as a size guide and trimmed off excess. Takes a little time, but it was nice smoking pork shoulders with home grown apple wood.
  Also tried trimming trunk on table saw to reduce to 2 3/16" before putting on miter saw. I trimmed to 2 3/16" square, tilted blade to 45 degrees & set rip fence to make cuts equal on all 8 sides, angled blade to 22 degrees an trimmed all sides equal to make very nearly round. This was easier than I thought when I started and is another was to smoke using local varieties.  Note of caution, when using miter saw, be sure blade stops turning before returning as teeth can throw puck out rapidly if blade still turning. Happy smoking 
Alanfromwis

[Alanfromwis]

Hi all,
  If anyone wants, send me a personal message so I can send you pictures. By the way, this is not an attempt for anyone to stop using Bradley bisquetts. Bradleys work fine & these take time to make, but is a way to use home grown wood.
  I need to do some more testing to see if there is enough smoke or if I need to drill some holes in pucks to burn faster as wood is more dense than standard pucks.
  Alanfromwis

[Alanfromwis]

  Did some more testing this morning using 5 homemade wood pucks, 3 apple & 2 maple with one Bradley hickory for smoke comparsion. One each of apple & maple had 10 holes 3/16" drilled through. There seemed to be a little more smoke with pucks with the holes, but not much. The homade wood pucks smoked noticeably less & all curled up in the center causing loss of contact with element. This does work but is more work than I would want to do often.
  Happy smoking