Is hardwood from speciality suppliers treated?

David Agnew

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Howdy guys, long time no see. Maybe y'all can help me answer this one.

A little while ago, I was smoking some chicken in my charcoal smoker. I didn't have any mesquite or applewood chips around so I thought to myself "Self, cherry smells really good when you mill it, let's try that" So I chipped up about a quarter board foot of cherry off-cut and tossed it in. Chicken turned out real good, BTW.

I related this story to a buddy recently and he was shocked. "Oh no, all that wood is treated for bugs and things, I wouldn't wanna smoke with that."

I've never heard of such a thing. This wasn't reclaimed flooring or a chunk of old furniture. While it wasn't rough cut, it was just unfinished 4/4 S2S/SLR cherry from my local hardwood store. Chicken tasted good and nobody got even a hint of sick.


Do you guys have any insights? Thanks!
 
The main difference between wood from a supplier and wood off of the mill is the kiln process. That is what kills the bugs. So treated, I would think not. Bug resistant, nope. Free of bugs, should be if run through a kiln. Wood from a sawmill many times will have been sprayed with a concoction of stuff to kill bugs and deter bugs, that might not be so good to smoke with.
 
I doubt any bug treatment made it to the interior of a log and kiln drying takes care of most critters. No insight into commercial post production bug treatments. One would think a safety data sheet (SDS) would have to be supplied if the lumber had been treated with a chemical compound. Many small scale sawyers use borate sprays like Timbor to surface treat their stored lumber to prevent powderpost beetles, which love cherry sap wood. Not sure what happens when you burn a boric acid treated piece of wood, but if you have planed or sanded it then any surface treatment should have been removed. Personally, I wouldn't worry about it.

Years ago I had access to apple orchards that had pushed over large old trees to replace them with smaller, easier to pick species. The land owners just piled them up and burned them. I managed to get all the apple trunks I wanted. I asked why they didn't sell them as firewood and they said the locals wouldn't use the stuff because they were afraid of all the years of systemic insecticides/fungicides the trees had absorbed over the years. Systemic is the key word here. The stuff gets into the wood as opposed to just a surface treatment.
 
In my general area there is only one hardwood specialty yard. None of there wood is treated in any way. The only thing they do is mill it, dry it and they will plane it and so on if the customer so desires. No bug treatment what so ever. As I do all of my turnings from logs that I bring in and cut down for the blanks it still never gets any kind of treatment. uhuh Not a good idea. Any bugs in the wood meets their demise from denatured alcohol and the kiln. In the case of the apple trunks Ted's referring to, that might be a problem. Not sure. I never had that problem. There are pecan orchards around that get sprayed but I don't get any wood from there.
 
Thanks for reassuring me guys. I figured it didn't have anything on/in it. Plus it'd been through a couple different planers and sanders.

Tasted pretty good too. :D
 
Makes you wonder about eating the apples off trees that have systemic insecticides? I would think the government (department of Agriculture) might take a dim view of this. Most of the apple orchards i know about use topical sprays and have to apply them frequently given rainfall. The apples are harvested after so many spray free days and I think undergo a wash to mitigate any residual insecticides.
 
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