To those of you that use fruit woods

I'm with @nolaegghead  in that I think that is simply false.  Maybe they are trying to sell more wood?

While I don't experience the humidity, we get hot - REALLY hot, day and night for at least 4 months.

I store my apple wood outside in a bucket under my prep table.  I have noticed no ill effects.

That is interesting.  On their site they basically recommend storing them in a refrigerator.  I just store mine outside in a deck box but I have just been buying the grocery store variety like Western.  I think they are kiln dried so it doesn't matter as much.  

The fruitawood folks seem pretty serious about it.  

http://www.fruitawoodchunks.com/stfrwoch.html

PLEASE REMEMBER: These ideas are for our FRUIT WOODS, and not the hard woods. We have seen on different forums where folks have given us the high end of a BS Meter. This is because they assume, that we are talking about all our woods.

Remember our FRUIT woods are cut from wood that is in a climate controlled building. This increases the moisture life in the FRUIT wood. The more natural moisture in the FRUIT wood the better flavor you will get. Your box of FRUIT wood will last longer as well. The chunks/splits wont burn up in 10 minutes like bagged woods do. Our Fruit wood will smoke for 30-40 minutes before you will need to add more to your fire box.

And thats NO BS. I dont care whos meter you read.

Note that they are saying the wood smokes longer than 10 minutes while in the fire box. They are assuming an offset cooker, which is entirely different than an Egg. Eggs don't need wet wood, they donr need wood in special containers.

My experience using uncured fruit woods is minimal, largely because the difference from dried is so slight as to be near unnoticeable.

Fresh wood will steam out the cut ends, because wood is a lot like a bunch of straws, they pull moisture from the roots to the leaves through these 'straws'.

I've used apricot, peach, grape, and apple as well as the nut tree hardwoods.

The grape I cut myself took more than a year to use up, if there was a difference between "fresh" grape and 'seasoned' grape I couldn't tell you. Other woods I've purchased by the chunk, day of cook, from a basket of wood that had been there for an unknown and un-cared about amount of time.

Maybe it's like wine. Some people can tell you that this wine, upon swirling the glass and sniffing, has an "earthy chocolate note" or some other wine snot phrase.

 I can tell you it was red and it got me buzzed. Not calling BS on anybody, maybe it did have an earthy chocolate note that escaped me, I'm just keeping it "real".

Perhaps the Fruita folks are like smoke sommeliers, I'm more of a "don't care" kind of smoker. Maybe it's "more better" when it's kept dry in a cigar humidor or in a Tupperware container in the wine cellar, but honestly - if your palate can't tell the difference, don't worry about it.

DieselkW said:

Maybe it's like wine. Some people can tell you that this wine, upon swirling the glass and sniffing, has an "earthy chocolate note" or some other wine snot phrase.

 I can tell you it was red and it got me buzzed. 

Love this! A man after my own heart!!  

@DieselkW smoke sommelier, I like it. 

Picked up a bunch of wood from Fruita last year. I keep it in closed plastic storage bins in the garage and in my Egg shed on the deck. Still works great.

Now I need a temperature controlled humidor for my smoking wood? Maybe I'll set it up next to the rare vintages I stock in my wine cellar. This Q'ing game is getting expensive.

The only wood chunks/chips I've wondered about aging well are those from whiskey barrels, mainly because part of the "flavoring" doesn't come from the wood itself. Otherwise, I have plenty of wood that's stored in a garage that gets very hot and very cold with no noticeable degradation. 

I wonder if it's a coincidence that their best practices encourage frequent, repeat business