Oak barbecue charcoal. The right firewood is the key to excellent barbecue

Before the start of the heating season, private owners purchase firewood, paying attention only to the price and appearance flammable material. For cooking outdoors, everything that burns is used, which is why the meat often acquires an unpleasant taste. In this article we will tell you why you should pay attention to the properties of a particular wood, what is the difference between hard and soft wood.

Types of firewood and their properties

Let's look at the main types of firewood, as well as their features. Let's talk about how soft rocks differ from hard rocks.

Hard rocks

Hardwoods are characterized by the absence of large air chambers between the wood fibers. Thus, such wood is distinguished by its density, resistance to the external environment, and also weight. Even a small branch will be very weighty. Such a tree gives maximum amount heat.

Hard rocks are problematic to chop and saw. This wood burns slowly, gradually, and produces a lot of coals. However, it is not used for ignition, since high temperature is required for combustion.

Important! Hardwood can burn even when wet, since the density of the fibers does not allow it to absorb too much water. Wet hardwood logs burn much longer than dry ones.

These breeds include:

Medium hard breeds

TO this species refers to wood that has average parameters. This group contains both coniferous and deciduous trees. When burning, wood releases an average amount of heat; it burns even when wet, but not over-moistened (wet or freshly cut).

It produces a sufficient amount of coals, but burns out faster than the options described above. Splitting and sawing such trees is also not easy. They have dense enough fibers to complicate this process, so harvesting firewood takes a considerable amount of time.

Medium hard breeds include:

From this list, birch is most often used. Its price is extremely low, and its heat transfer rates are high. In addition, birch is the easiest to split.

Soft breeds

This is the wood that is used for ignition. It ignites quickly and burns out quickly, leaving no coals behind. Softwoods have a significant volume of air chambers between the fibers, so the weight of the wood is low, as is the heat transfer. Such rocks are not used for heating, since the consumption is extremely high.

Soft breeds include:

Which firewood is better

For different types of activities should be used different types firewood Why coniferous trees are not used for stoves and fireplaces, and why it is better to use fruit trees for cooking barbecue, we will consider further.

To heat up the bath

To heat the sauna, hardwood logs are used, as they take a long time to burn, produce a lot of heat, and do not spark. In this case, you should give preference to ash, beech or oak. This wood burns evenly, giving high temperature, and its consumption is extremely small.

You should not heat the bathhouse with pine needles, otherwise you will have problems with the chimney, and if combustion products begin to enter the room, smoke may occur. Also, these rocks spark strongly, so there is a risk of fire.

Video: how to choose firewood for a bath As for birch, it can be used for heating, but only with a sufficient amount of oxygen. If the air supply is poor, then the firewood will begin to smoke. Birch will burn even with high humidity.

For heating the house with a stove, boiler and fireplace

To ignite a boiler or stove, you can use absolutely any wood, even soft species, but only hard and medium-hard species are used as a base. The best options are alder and aspen.

This wood burns without the formation of soot; moreover, during combustion, the chimney self-cleans itself of the already accumulated soot, so you do not have to waste time. In terms of heat release, hornbeam, beech and ash are best suited.

Important!One storage meter is equal in volume to 200 liters of liquid fuel.

They have maximum calorific value, so they not only allow you to maintain a stable temperature in the house, but also reduce the square footage of the firewood storage area. For comparison, 1 hornbeam meter gives 2.1 megawatts per hour, and spruce - 1.4 megawatts. Almost half the heat, and the area occupied by firewood is the same.
The worst are logs made from poplar, pine, spruce, elm, and apple trees. They should be abandoned for two reasons: the release of a large volume of tar or smoke that clogs the chimney, as well as the appearance of sparks during the combustion process, which can cause a fire.

We should also talk about birch. In principle, this is a good option, but only with a sufficient amount of oxygen. If it is not there, then birch tar will begin to be deposited on the walls of the chimney in large volumes. As a result, the effect will be similar to that of burning pine or spruce logs.

Firewood that sparks a lot is not suitable for the fireplace, so we immediately discard soft wood, as well as spruce and pine. Such firewood will not only damage the fireplace sight glass, but will also cause smoke in the room even with good draft. If there is no protective glass, a fire may occur due to flying sparks.

Video: what kind of firewood should be used for the stove and fireplace The best option is the same alder and aspen, which burn without releasing soot. To create a beautiful, intricate fire, you can use small stumps or hardwood roots. Cedar firewood smolders for a long time, allowing you to enjoy the beautiful picture of hot coals.

If the smell of burning wood is taken into account, then it is better to take an apple or pear tree. They will fill the room with a wonderful fruity aroma. A classic for a fireplace is beech, which gives a lot of heat, does not spark, burns out for a long time, and does not emit a lot of smoke. Beech firewood has a good smell, so it is often used for smoking.

For barbecue

The taste and aroma of shish kebab depends not only on the meat and marinade, but also on the wood on which it is cooked. For this reason, you should be careful about lighting your fire with the right wood.
Fruit trees are always used to prepare barbecue, as they provide the necessary aroma, burn without releasing soot, and also have good heat transfer rates.

At the same time, we have our favorites, namely:

• cherry;
• Apple tree;
• grapes (thick vine).

You can also use firewood from,. What you should give up is pine needles and spruce.

Such wood will cover your meat with a thick layer of unpleasant-tasting coating, which will not only spoil the appearance, but also the taste. This type of kebab will have to be cleaned of any burning residue beforehand.

• (lots of soot);
• and (bad taste of meat).

Important! It is forbidden to use wood from poisonous trees, otherwise you will get poisoned.

As for the previously mentioned rocks that are used for heating premises, they are not suitable for two reasons:

• they are difficult to light, and you will have to wait for more than one hour for them to burn out;
• they provide absolutely no flavor to the meat, unlike fruit trees.

Basic rules and requirements

Let's consider the rules for storing and storing firewood, which will help preserve the material, as well as properly use the space.

Only completely dried chopped firewood should be stored for further storage. A shed or a shed is used as a warehouse. closed room, which protects the material from the sun and precipitation. The presence of a draft does not play a big role, however, the room must be ventilated if it is completely closed.
Firewood is laid out on bricks or another base that does not allow it to come into contact with the soil. This is necessary so that the wood does not begin to absorb moisture like a sponge. To provide good support, iron or wooden beams are placed on the sides of the woodpile.

Storage

During storage, firewood should not be exposed to rain, snow, or sunlight. The room in which wood is stored should not be flooded. Even if the logs are located at a great distance from the floor, water will increase air humidity, and accordingly, the firewood may become damp.

Remember that wood begins to rot only when the humidity is above 30%, so it is important to prevent large volumes of firewood from getting wet. It is better to remove wet logs if it is not possible to dry them quickly.

It is also necessary to leave a small gap between stacks of firewood to allow air circulation. If this is not done, the firewood will begin to deteriorate.

Did you know? In tropical Brazil, a tree was discovered that produces a lot of resin. This resin can be used as diesel fuel without additional processing. Moreover, one tree can provide up to 500 liters of “free” fuel per year.

We looked at what types of wood should be used for different purposes and why coniferous trees are not suitable for kindling. Hardwood always costs a lot more, but it is well worth the cost.

Summer is the season for picnics and outdoor recreation. You can grill kebabs, fish or grilled vegetables. Vacationers carefully select meat and marinade, but do not think at all about the fuel with which it will all be cooked. Of course, there are few options. But this does not mean that they are all equally good. It’s like with barbecue recipes - there are many options, different tastes. For example, a universal recipe is wonderfully described on www.shampurok.ru, but even it can be spoiled by bad firewood. So what should you use to make a fire outdoors, coals or firewood? And most importantly, which ones?

How to choose the right firewood

Firewood can be called the most versatile fuel. They must be selected according to two criteria: the amount of heat and aroma. For example, firewood from hard trees (oak, beech, birch, linden) produces a lot of heat and emits a minimum unpleasant odor. This a good choice for a picnic. Firewood made from fruit trees (cherry, apple and others) also gives good heat and at the same time emits a rather noticeable aroma. This is a matter of taste: if you like meat with the aroma of fruit, then this raw material is just for you.

Firewood from coniferous trees should not be used at all for preparing meat and fish dishes. Pine, for example, contains a lot of resin, so when burned it produces unpleasant smoke and odor. The meat will have an unnatural taste and will be covered with a layer of soot. Already after the first piece eaten, an unpleasant sensation will appear, as if the kebab was cooked not on wood, but on car tires.

It turns out that hard rocks are the best option, and let gourmets use fruit ones.

When choosing firewood, you need to pay attention to their size. Thin sticks are suitable exclusively for lighting, and thick logs give off a lot of heat and can be used for cooking more dishes. Experienced lovers of country holidays advise giving preference to firewood, the diameter of which ranges from 10-15 cm. In their opinion, this is the optimal value.

It is better to take logs without bark, as it can ruin the dish. The bark burns quickly and produces a lot of ash, which is carried by the wind and ends up on what you are cooking.

Another important factor is the quality of firewood. Rotten and rotten logs are not suitable for making a fire: there will be a lot of smoke and little heat. In addition, the firewood must be absolutely dry. How to determine this? A dry log has cracks on the cut, indicating that the moisture has evaporated and the wood has dried out. This fuel burns well and produces a lot of heat.

Conclusion: high-quality firewood of large size, hard, without bark and well-dried.

Which coal is better

A good alternative to firewood - charcoal. It is produced as follows: firewood is chopped to the required size, placed in a special oven and heated there without access to air. As a result, the cellulose that makes up the wood splits and what remains is a porous substance - coal. What is the advantage of this fuel? Coal is the ready heat needed to cook barbecue. With it you don’t have to wait for the fire to burn out, you can pour it in, set it on fire and cook right away!

When choosing coals, you also need to pay attention to the size of the raw material. Ideally they should be the size of a fist. Small coals burn quickly, which means you can’t cook a lot of meat with them. By the way, high-quality coals should be made from hard wood, without unnecessary aromas and soot.

The most expensive coal is pressed briquetted coal. It is made like this: ordinary coal is ground into crumbs, binding substances (starch and others) are added, pressed and small briquettes of the same shape are obtained. Compressed coal has many advantages. It is very dense, compact, burns slowly and produces a lot of heat that is distributed evenly. This option costs an order of magnitude more, but the purchase will justify itself, because it will be enough for more than one picnic.

What to choose for barbecue - wood or coal?

Advice: if you love the aroma of a fire and have a lot of time to cook barbecue, choose wood, and if the company requires “meat and circuses” as soon as you get out of the car, then coals will help out.

Have delicious barbecue and enjoy your holiday!

The right choice of firewood for barbecue

The taste and aroma of the shish kebab depends on what type of wood you use to grill the shish kebab. For example, if you use radius wardrobes for firewood to cook meat, you will get a practically inedible dish. To make the kebab really tasty, it is recommended to use grapevines. Its wood smolders slowly (due to which the heat is maintained for a long time), and also gives the meat unique taste. In the absence of a vine, it is advisable to use branches of a cherry, apple or plum tree.

Frying meat on coniferous trees is strictly prohibited. Such wood contains a lot of resin and has specific smell, which can ruin the dish. You cannot cook barbecue on logs of trees such as rowan, poplar, acacia, elm, ash or aspen. During combustion, they release enzymes that are harmful to humans. Therefore, if you wanted to buy a new cabinet for the hallway, and use the old one from the above wood species as firewood for barbecue, then you risk poisoning. And in general, the use of any furniture, fences or benches for preparing meat can significantly harm your health, since these items are often treated with various chemicals.

How types of meat are combined with tree species

To fry poultry kebab, it is better to use branches of fruit trees such as plum, apricot, apple, etc. Beef or fish will have a great taste if they are fried on pear, peach or birch wood. Cherry and linden branches are perfect for cooking pork and lamb. You should choose dense and dry firewood up to 30 cm in size. To avoid strong smoke, it is recommended to remove the bark from the logs. However, this rule does not apply to fruit trees.

Many people believe that it is much easier and more profitable to use specially prepared coals (bought in a store), it seems to be easier and faster, but they do not improve the taste of the shish kebab and, as you yourself understand, it is better to choose firewood, after all, make shish kebab on wood is more pleasant!

Cooking barbecue is quite a serious matter. Using a neighbor's fence, wooden toys from your childhood, or your mother-in-law's old shed as firewood for a barbecue - harmful influence for your product. A kebab made on such strange wood, of course, will not be able to please you with its pleasant aroma and decent taste.

So, what do we know about firewood? – this is an ideal fuel for fireplaces, stoves, boilers (using solid fuel), grills, barbecues, barbecues.
When wood burns, the same amount is released carbon dioxide, as with rotting wood. So obsolete trees can, even should, be burned. The “hottest” firewood is considered to be made from birch, the least “hot” is from aspen.

Undoubtedly, firewood, on the fuel side, is gradually losing its relevance. Still, in our time of electricity and gas, many residents of our country still use stoves. Since neither gas, nor coal, and even more so electricity can replace the pleasantly audible crackling of logs. And now I would like to talk specifically about firewood for barbecue, because who doesn’t like to get out into nature or to the barbecue in their yard with friends and loved ones and engage in the exciting process of cooking barbecue?

Not all firewood is suitable for barbecue coals. Let's find out what is better to use. First of all, structurally, wood should preferably be strong and dense in order to burn longer. The quality of the coals depends on this; they will provide long-lasting heat. According to this principle, you should immediately discard rotten and rotten firewood of any type. This firewood will burn almost instantly and we will not see coals from it.

The most suitable logs for making barbecue are: linden, oak and other types of fruit trees, such as plum, cherry, apple, sweet cherry, pear, peach and others. According to experts, firewood made from grapevines is ideal for barbecues. Only deciduous trees are suitable for cooking of this dish. However, it is not recommended to use coniferous firewood, as it will give the meat an unpleasant taste that will be difficult to overcome even with all sorts of seasonings. It is best to make shish kebab from poultry and game meat on the firewood of fruit trees; from pork or lamb - on cherry or birch wood; from by-products - linden, as well as fruit, but for veal kebab, firewood from fruit trees, birch and linden is ideal.

You can also add that it is ideal to use a thick, dry vine to obtain good and long heat from the coals. If there is no vine, then firewood from juniper or acacia is also suitable. It is strictly not recommended to use resinous tree varieties. If you can’t find garden logs, then you can use birch logs. The bark of trees (except fruit trees) should be removed, because of which, as a rule, strong smoke appears.

Good firewood - dry logs, small in size (20 - 30 centimeters) are sometimes difficult to chop yourself, and getting them is not so easy. Well, why get them somewhere? You can easily find them here too. Residents of Moscow, and the entire Moscow region, can easily get all this from our company by simply calling 8-916-916-60-03. A wide range will help you find any firewood for your barbecue, which will ensure you a pleasant holiday. To all of the above, we can add that in a forest area or near a reservoir it is preferable to use, if desired, you can choose oak and linden. At the dacha, you can add small quantities of thick branches of fruit trees to this set.

Firewood for barbecue is no less important than the right marinade or meat. But few people attach importance to the choice of wood for barbecue - as long as it burns! And as a result, they end up with pieces of meat covered in soot and with a strange taste that you don’t even want to eat.

Therefore, today we will try to find out which best firewood for barbecue, and which ones should be abandoned. Of course, every cook, even an amateur, has his own secrets for cooking barbecue. Therefore, the information provided in the article can be called recommendations, but not ironclad rules.

Let us conditionally divide all the trees into three groups: fruit (fruit), deciduous and coniferous.

Here - a definite yes! Many barbecue makers admit that the best firewood for barbecue is from fruit trees. The “advantages” of fruit wood for frying barbecue include good heat, the ability to maintain temperature for a long time and transmit a delightful subtle aroma to the meat.

Fruit firewood for barbecue fulfills the main condition: their wood is dense, so it can burn for a long time and hold heat. This way the meat can be cooked in own juice, as required for real barbecue. It is better to harvest such wood for barbecue in late autumn. You don't have to remove the bark.

Now let’s take a little look at the main types of fruit trees:

Ideal option for game, poultry, veal, offal, pork and lamb. Cherry wood produces enough smoke, thanks to which you can achieve the “smoky” effect of the kebab. If you don’t have the required amount of cherry firewood, it doesn’t matter, just ask for a couple of branches, and the meat will be saturated with a subtle aroma.

Like cherries, it gives enough smoke and saturates the product with aroma. Suitable for barbecue of poultry, game, veal, and offal.

It is loved by barbecue makers for the wonderful aroma that the wood imparts to the meat.

- grape. Very a good option for barbecue: despite the thinness of the “logs”, the vine is capable of slowly smoldering for a long time, giving stable heat and excellent taste to the meat.

Firewood for barbecue from other fruit and fruit trees will do too. Lemon wood will burn for a long time, produce coals and imbue the wood with a subtle aroma.

Firewood for barbecue from deciduous trees

Here the “yes” will not be as clear as in the case of fruit trees. The reality is that you often have to choose firewood for barbecue from what is available, and if you cook barbecue at your dacha, fruit trees grow close at hand. But those who do not have a dacha are content with the more common birch, linden and oak trees.

Let's consider which hardwood is suitable for barbecue:

This type of wood gives enough heat, but is very smoky and smoky. As a result, the kebab may end up a little sooted. Therefore, birch firewood for barbecue should be used carefully.

Poplar firewood produces a bright, beautiful fire, but quickly burns out, does not provide heat, but gives the meat an unpleasant “heavy” taste. The same applies to walnuts.

- . Dense ash wood is good for barbecue because it can hold heat for a long time. The only thing is that it is difficult to light it. This can be said about hawthorn and beech.

- , – perfect for barbecue, capable of giving good coals.

- , – give little heat.

- saxaul – perfect option in terms of efficiency. Unfortunately, not available to many.

In general, we can say that wood deciduous trees The denser it is, the better it is for barbecue. But it won’t give the barbecue any flavor. However, no one forbids making a mix and adding a little cherry coal to the oak and linden coals.

The bark from deciduous trees should be removed before putting it on the fire - they smoke and, apart from soot, will not provide anything for meat.

Firewood for barbecue from coniferous trees

Specialists It is not recommended to take firewood for barbecue from coniferous trees– , . During combustion, this wood releases resins that fall into the kebab. They spoil the taste of meat, make it specific, and the resin will not bring any benefit to our body. In addition, coniferous wood shoots and sparkles when burned. Therefore, pine firewood can only be used for cooking in closed containers.

But you can add a couple of pine cones to the fire - the meat will have a piquant taste.

You cannot use firewood for barbecue made from rotten, rotten wood. It will not be able to produce good coals and hold the heat. Naturally, you should not take wood from poisonous tree species. Do not take raw firewood for barbecue - dry it in the sun or at least near a fire.

The main criteria are that wood for shish kebab It didn’t smoke much, held the heat well, and, if possible, provided the kebab with a subtle aroma.

Of course, you can just go to the supermarket and buy coals - birch, as a rule. This is a normal choice - a semi-finished product for the lazy. However, you don’t want to spend money, and the kebab will be completely different.

Cooking barbecue is an art, and firewood for barbecue play a significant role in this art.

Tatyana Kuzmenko, member of the editorial board, correspondent of the online publication "AtmWood. Wood-Industrial Bulletin"