maple tree

[wmn luv me walleye fearme]

I have to cut down a huge maple tree I have in my yard (actually have to hire it out and man is it way more expensive then I was guessing) But I was thinking about keeping a ton of the wood for smoking in the future. Was going to cut some up in big chunks and also use some chips from the wood chipper. How long do you think I need to let them dry out before I can start using them in the smoker? Also do you think I am better off just starting out with some big logs for now, letting them sit outside for a year then cut it up with what I want to use?

Thanks

[picksbigwagon]

when you use it in the smoker, you have to soak the wood so it produces smoke for a long time, I would say use it green. you will get a lot of smoke from that green wood. I have a big silver maple that needs to go as well, if you don't mind me asking, how bad is the damage to bank account?

[wmn luv me walleye fearme]

got 3 estimates cheapest was a 1,000 for them to cut it down and haul it off. Would be about 300 cheaper to have them cut it down then I would just break it down into smaller pieces and keep it on my property. One guy must have either been way to busy or just didnt want the work but took a shot at overbidding me by quoting 2k. Its a huge tree. I've cut down some smaller ones before but this one would be way out of my league.

[nofishfisherman]

IF you need to split any of the wood to make it small enough for the smoker it might be easier to split it when its dry if you need to do it by hand. But if its small enough I would use it before drying. I've never really timed to see how long it takes to dry out wood like that. Usually I just stack up my large pieces and forget about them for awhile and then I go back and split them into useable sized pieces. Never sure how long the wood had been sitting.

By the way, quotes on cutting down trees seems to vary widely. I had a large spruce taken out of my front yard last year. (previous home onwers thought a small spruce would look nice in the front yard but didn't consider it would grow up and cover the entire house someday).

I had quotes come in anywhere from $250 to $1000 for the same tree. Not sure how it could be 4x more costly for one guy versus the other.

It was a pretty easy job really, plenty of room to let it fall, no problem getting equipment to the tree, the thing was pretty sparse in terms of branches, and the trunk wasn't very large diameter.

Ultimately St. Croix Tree Services was the low bidder and I've known lots of people who use them and always heard good things.

[fivebucks]

I've never smoked with maple before so not sure what flavor it will put out. You can use it green just fine but while it is green make sure you peel all the bark off cause the bark of any wood will put a bad taste out.