Where to buy wood chunks?

Lowcountrygamecock

Ive always used pellets in my masterbuilt smoker and narrowed it down to a few good sources for good sweet smelling pellets. I'm fairly new to kamado cooking and haven't nailed a good source for wood chunks yet. I tried a bag of the hickory chunks from lowes but some were a little barky and some were just off for some reason. Where do you buy your wood chunks?

da87

No affiliation, but in addition to Rockwood lump, Firecraft has a selection of wood chunks. I've bought a couple of the brands and cherry, apple, pecan, oak, and hickory - all have been good size. Since I'm usually ordering 6 bags of Rockwood I'm into the free shipping zone. 

PBandJ

Home Depot has a better selection than Lowes.

Mickey

Very nice people, FREE SHIPPING, lots of different woods. I've used the sugar maple for a lot of years. Those say chips but I order both chips and chunks. 

ElkhornHusker

Fruita wood chunks out of Colorado.

shtgunal3

I go outside and cut my own.

blasting

You could check if your city has a local firewood supplier (mine does).  It's a massive industrial lot with dozens of huge piles of various woods.  Also ordered from Firecraft. 

ronw9471

The Fruita wood chunks are beautiful, incredibly clean. Just received apple and cherry chunks, going to use some apple tomorrow.

StillH2OEgger

What if I'm looking for non-organic wood chunks?

Acn

+1 for Mickey's rec. http://www.mainegrillingwoods.com/

Meeeshigan22

Another vote for Fruita, excellent product. 

etherdome

I do academy or Home Depot. Both have excellent selections always

dstearn

I have been a fruitawood.com customer for serveral years. Just received a box of post oak 2x2 cut chunks. If you do not want the bark just specify in the comment section of the order. 

JohnInCarolina

Acn said:

+1 for Mickey's rec. http://www.mainegrillingwoods.com/

This is why I love this forum.  I often learn something new.  

ronw9471

StillH2OEgger said:

What if I'm looking for non-organic wood chunks?

That might be a tough one.

Meeeshigan22

etherdome said:

I do academy or Home Depot. Both have excellent selections always

Maybe it's just me but I don't get enough smoke flavor from the kiln dried wood you find in box stores. Burns up too fast.

in my opinion you get better results from the naturally seasoned wood. 

etherdome

Meeeshigan22 said:

etherdome said:

I do academy or Home Depot. Both have excellent selections always

Maybe it's just me but I don't get enough smoke flavor from the kiln dried wood you find in box stores. Burns up too fast.

in my opinion you get better results from the naturally seasoned wood. 

No problem with that here at all but i guess just personal preference. I get excellent smoke rings and flavor. any more smoke flavor and I probably wouldn't like it. 

DoubleEgger

This place is in Chucktown 

http://www.cook-n-out.com/products.html

This is upstate

https://carolinacookwood.com/

 

Hans61

I usually buy Weber fire spice chunks from my local hardware store. When I order from firecraft I'll get the smokeme peach chunks 

the western bags at Walmart  maple and cherry are cheap and good 

dougcrann

da87 said:the 

No affiliation, but in addition to Rockwood lump, Firecraft has a selection of wood chunks. I've bought a couple of the brands and cherry, apple, pecan, oak, and hickory - all have been good size. Since I'm usually ordering 6 bags of Rockwood I'm into the free shipping zone. 

I thought I ordered some Pecan "chunks" from Firecraft. Caught them when shipping was free. What I got was more in line with small splits for my stick burner. I ended up sawing them into shorter pieces on my table saw after splitting them with an ax. Never looked into what happened.
That being said...product had very little, if any bark. Wood is very clean. Burns very nicely, creating quite a bit of smoke. Will be ordering some Oak & Hickory from them shortly... 

The_Stache

I have some black cherry trees that need to come down to eliminate the shade on SWMBO's garden.... bring chainsaw....

da87

I have to take back what I said about Firecraft, so -1 on ordering chunks from them...  Just on the website to order more Rockwood and it looks like they really cut back their selection of chunks and lump.  Now appear to only have pellets and chips for wood choices and only Rockwood for lump....  Only Rockwood is fine with me as that's my preferred lump, but I'll be bookmarking this thread to find chunks in the future.  If others find out something different regarding Firecraft's chunk wood please post!

Lowcountrygamecock

I had already checked firecraft and didn't see chunks. I wondered if I was missing something after everybody suggested them. 

toddfb

I get mine from Lowes or Home Depot. I can SEE what I am getting. In my experience, the shipping ends up adding too much to the purchase

Carolina Q

Nothing wrong with bark. Couple of guys on here often use JUST the bark when hickory smoking. I cut up my own when I can, usually deadfall or prunings from oak or maple, bark and all. I don't use smoke wood all that much. When I do buy it, it's from Home Depot, once or twice from Cabelas (in store, not shipped).  

stlcharcoal

One thing about woods, they're almost all supposed to be heat treated / kilned unless you're sourcing them from a very local place.  The bugs have been killing trees like crazy......the City of STL is removing 80,000 ash trees this year because the emerald ash borer is going to kill them all anyway.  The DNR and DOC in this state are really on campers and people transporting firewood--you can get in some trouble moving non-heat treated raw wood.  This state used to have a TON of black walnut trees, but the price has skyrocketed due to the bug that's been killing them.  Gypsy moth is another one we've been fighting for 10+ yrs.

We're coming out with RW branded smoking woods and chips in a few weeks, but it's for the STL area only.  Apple, Cherry, Peach, Maple, Pecan, and Hickory......might add some more later, but that's it for now.

I've dealt with woods in the past, and from a business stand point, they need to be heat treated.  Otherwise there will be mold, and they'll leave a pile of sawdust every time you pick up the bag because of the bugs.  If you have quick access to it in your backyard, take it, but as far as storing it long term, transporting it, or having it inside, gotta go with the heat-treated to be safe.

The_Stache

@stlcharcoal.... Sage advice!!!

da87

out of curiosity I sent a note to Firecraft Customer service, here's the response:

"Unfortunately we no longer carry the Smoke Me BBQ wood chunks through FireCraft.

Some of my customers have been calling Smoke Me BBQ directly for availability or looking for retailers online.

I apologize for the inconvenience and hope this information helps. Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.

Thank You,"

fishlessman

on my tenth acre of wilderness theres sweet cherry, black cherry, apple, pear, lilac, rosemary, red and white oak,sugar maple, grape and mullberry and blueberry. short walk down the street and theres shag bark hickory, i only use the bark straight off the tree. found a post oak on conservation land, buying post oak would be cheaper than the fine for knocking it down

clifkincaid

Seen this place off instagram. Not kiln dried wood. Www.bbqhardwood.com

NC_Egghead

Timely bump. 
Went with a friend yesterday, who has an Oklahoma Joe offset cooker, to pick up some wood in SC. Place is somewhere roughly between Clover and Smyrna but I don't know if I could find it again on a bet. Turns out it's a lumber mill that you would never know was there since its back from the road in the woods. They also sell wood directly to restaurants by the pallet. Evidently a pallet is slightly less than a cord. They also sell wood chunks; pecan, cherry, peach, maple, etc. 


High tech operation as you can see. To say this place is nothing fancy would be a compliment. Glad I brought the Jeep since there were some mucky areas and a rough dirt road to get back there. Anyways we decided on 40 lbs of pecan and peach and 20 lbs of cherry, which we were going to split between us. The wood was super clean; nice big chunks too. Here's the full load, trying to keep the 3 woods separated with a tarp:

Here's my half; pecan, cherry, peach, left to right:

Total 100 lbs of chunks for $170. The "shipping" cost was a quarter tank of mid-grade in the hemi for the trip from Charlotte. I've got enough to last a while but next time we go back, we'll be more prepared with containers and also get a little more since I believe there's a better price at the 50lb mark.