What's the best thing to burn in smoker?

[Poly Hive]

Please keep in mind it is not whether it will burn but how it burns.

You want a cool smoke and fresh this and that will produce a sharp eye stinging smoke.

Rotten dry wood burns cool and sweet not acrid and hot.

PH

 

[user 6228]

Heretics?

but they are in short supply then wood shavings from a planer, cardboard packing material etc///

 

[Erichalfbee]

What's the best thing to burn in smoker?

I seem to burn £20 notes in mine

 

[maddydog]

Dave Cushman works for me (not burning him!) Good use of that thornes cardboard we all have lying around plus some Hessian rolled into a cartridge

 

[Swarm]

Dry rotten wood. Never get thick smoke, it's always light and even has a pleasant smell and it stays in until it's put out.

 

[pargyle]

I tend to use shavings from my wood turning - they are usually hard woods of some flavour, light well, burn slow and the smoke is not unpleasant. Unlike soft woods there is less tar to gum up the smoker.

To be honest, I rarely need to use my smoker - it sits in the corner of the apiary usually from start to finish and it's nice to be confident that a couple of goes with the bellows will bring it back to life. Whatever you choose find something that stays lit for however long you need it ... and the other good tip is to have a blow torch to light it. I have a little one that runs on lighter gas and is intended really for culinary use. I picked it up as a clearance item in Lidl for a few quid along with enough canisters to see it used for ten years worth of smoker lighting !

But, a similar bit of kit can be bought for about £12 from various retailers and Amazon.

http://www.robertdyas.co.uk/kitchen...&istBid=tzta&gclid=CObc0IvImc4CFcQp0wodBSgBAQ

 

[biglongdarren]

Soft rotten wood, i'll collect it now in the autumn and let it dry till next year.
I can have it smoking, block up the smoker and travel 20mins and it will still fire up again after a few puffs.

Darren

 

[seaknight]

Title says it all

I still have problems lighting my smoker and keeping it alight. Use wood chips after council cut down trees locally and left big piles of chips in hedgerow a few years ago. Dried them out for months in polytunnel before use.

But what's the best thing to use? Fed up of smoker going out just when I need it!

Any advice appreciated

Start the smoker by lighting half a tabloid sheet of newspaper (from a stack already torn to size and kept in a biscuit tin) with a match.
Add a sprinkle of oak planings, puff the smoker until flames are seen.
Add another sprinkle of oak planings and puff again.
Add a good handful of oak planings, puff until dense white smoke is seen.
Put a handful of fresh grass/plant material on top, close the lid. Puff occasionally before/during use. Other wood shavings/chainsaw chips can work too.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Title says it all

I still have problems lighting my smoker and keeping it alight. Use wood chips after council cut down trees locally and left big piles of chips in hedgerow a few years ago. Dried them out for months in polytunnel before use.

But what's the best thing to use? Fed up of smoker going out just when I need it!

Any advice appreciated

Couple of bits of torn up cardboard egg carton lit and dropped into empty smoker. Add a little woodshavings and give a few puffs to get going then more woodshavings mixed with sawdust. Fill and tamp down then top up.
The mix of shavings/sawdust can be experimed with. Too high a proportion of shavings burns away, too much sawdust the burn chokes and goes out.
This will cause tarring but the tar can be easily carbonised with a blowtorch every few weeks and scrapes easily then.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Usually cardboard shreddings for me - either from Thornes or picked up from the skip at work. Pine cones and dry holly leaves also sort a work if it's running low..

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

chainsaw chips can work too.

not a good idea as chainsaw chips usually have oil on them

 

[thedeaddiplomat]

The current Lady DD and I use torn up egg cartons - lit by a chef's blowtorch (rather upsets the chef, but that can't be helped!).

Seems to work, though we are as sparing as can be with smoke anyway.

 

[bpmurray]

I use dried grass from the lawn clippings - seems to burn cool, no sparks.

I used pine shavings when I had no grass at the beginning of last season, and found the smoke to be really acrid with occasional showers of sparks, and the smoker was all tarred up, so I won't try that again.

 

[Noddy]

Wood pellets AKA wood cat litter pellets (the non-treated kind) - start with paper/shredded cardboard and add pellets. I put fresh grass on top as a filter.

Produces nice cool, white smoke and stays alight all day - I usually end up having to stuff the spout nozzle with grass to put it out.

 

[Webby]

I use rolled up cardboard to get it going and
then pack and a mixture of dry rotton wood and shavings.

 

[juanito]

Greetings Whynothot,
this may sound a trifle daft but last year I went help a fellow new beekeeper who was having trouble keeping the smoker going despite have dried leylandii woodchips , it turned out that they had the trivit on the top of the fuel, and without the air gap under the fuel the smoker just could not breath,
as I said maybe just a bit daft,

 

[alldigging]

Greetings Whynothot,
this may sound a trifle daft but last year I went help a fellow new beekeeper who was having trouble keeping the smoker going despite have dried leylandii woodchips , it turned out that they had the trivit on the top of the fuel, and without the air gap under the fuel the smoker just could not breath,
as I said maybe just a bit daft,

Another couple of things to watch for: trivet legs might come folded flat, need standing up. Also tar and grass can block the smoker entrance up which makes it keep going out.

 

[madasafish]

I have seen smokers where the blow hole in the smoker is blocked with shavings....

 

[stubee]

I use anything I don't have to pay for

 

[madasafish]

I use anything I don't have to pay for

lots of pot grown in UK...