Can someone tell me about the BTU content of the different smoking woods?
Danny Gaulden– I’m going to make this simple for you. Pound for pound, all woods create the same amount of BTUs. Does this mean that a cord of seasoned pine puts out the same amount of heat as a cord of seasoned hickory? No! The hickory will produce twice the amount of BTU’s of the pine because it weights roughly twice as much as the pine. So if one threw three 18 inch long, 4 inch round, seasoned hickory logs into their wood-burning smoker, they would create about twice the heat of three pine logs the same size, for the hickory is much denser and heavier. But, if one was to put 20 pounds of pine, or 20 pounds of hickory into the firebox, the overall heat would be the same. Now understand the pine would burn much faster, and give off a lot of heat quickly, then die down, whereas the hickory would burn much more slowly, and give off its heat at a slower rate. By the way, pound for pound, green wood gives off much less BTUs than seasoned wood, for it takes a lot of the heat energy to ev
