Pear Wood

[Eric Hartnell]

Greetings-

Yesterday my neighbor cut down his pear tree and gave me a pretty good stash of wood. I looked at the "All About Smoke Woods" page and saw that it was listed. I was wondering about what type of flavor it provides and what meat would be good with it?

Also, they are in "log" form and I was wondering if I should cut them into chuncks or leave them as is?

 

[Guest]

Hi Eric,
Pear wood is very good, alot like apple wood. I would leave most of the wood in log form...and maybe split and cut just what you might use in the next couple months or so.

Is the wood green or was the tree already dead when it was cut down?

Apple and Pear wood take a little longer to season than most hard woods. At least the apple wood around here does, especially if you haven't split the logs. You might want to split each log in half to give it a better chance to start seasoning properly.

If the wood is already dry and seasoned, I would only cut a little at a time.

 

[Eric Hartnell]

I also had a question about pesticide use on fruit woods. If the wood has been taken from an orchard, it is most likely that pesticides were used on the fruit and posibly the tree itself. During the smoking process, could it be possible that some of the pesticide residue may be transferred on the meat? also, would seasoning the wood for any length of time, allow for the reside to eventually wear off?

 

[Jim Minion]

Any pesticides used would be transmitted to the fruit also, so the types they use dissipated in short periods. You should be ok. No matter what type of hard wood you use there could be a problem if for example the people use a service that sprays their lawns and trees, Learn as much as you can about the orgin of the wood and go from there.
Jim

 

[Kevin Taylor]

To answer the pesticide issue...Jim is correct. The pesticides used in orchards dissipates very quickly. We had this discussion on another board and had a horticulture expert answer our questions.

Despite this fact, none of the local apple orchards will allow any wood taken from them.

BTW, I use pear all the time....one of the woods I have available for free.