Why We Started This Blog (And What a Guy in Canada Taught Us About Smoke)

Last week, we got an email from a guy in Canada.

Not a customer — we don't deliver to Canada. Just someone who'd been down a rabbit hole researching the chemistry of wood smoke for BBQ, stumbled across our Oak & Hickory page, and wanted to talk.

We ended up on the phone for an hour.

He'd written this massive document — pages and pages of research on lignin, phenolic compounds, combustion temperatures, why pellet grills don't produce the same flavor as offsets, the difference between "clean" and "dirty" smoke. Real deep-cut stuff. And he had questions. Good ones. The kind that made us think.

That conversation is why this blog exists.

I. We're Not Just Selling Firewood

Here's the thing: we could just sell wood. Cut it, split it, dry it, deliver it, cash the check. That's what most firewood operations do.

But that's not what gets us up at 4 AM.

What gets us up is the why. Why does properly seasoned oak burn hotter than the "seasoned" wood from the guy on Facebook Marketplace? Why does hickory smoke taste different than cherry? Why does wet wood create that thick white smoke that makes your brisket taste like an ashtray?

There's actual science behind all of this. And most of it never gets explained — just passed down as pitmaster folklore or buried in academic papers nobody reads.

II. What We Learned From the Conversation

A. The 1000°F Paradox: Why Hotter Isn't Always Better

Our Canadian friend was wrestling with a contradiction: "If dirty smoke comes from fires that aren't hot enough, why do some sources say fires over 1000°F also create bad flavor?"

The answer: they're two different problems. A smoldering fire (under 500°F, oxygen-starved) creates incomplete combustion — thick smoke, creosote, bitter taste. But a fire over 1000°F doesn't create "dirty" smoke, it creates no smoke. The volatile organic compounds that carry flavor get completely vaporized before they can deposit on your food. You get heat, but you lose flavor.

The sweet spot? 650-750°F. Hot enough to burn clean, cool enough to preserve the phenolic compounds that make smoke taste like smoke.

B. Smoke Rings Without Smoke

"Can you get a smoke ring without actual smoke?"

Yep. The smoke ring is caused by nitric oxide (NO) reacting with myoglobin in the meat — not by the phenolic flavor compounds. Charcoal produces NO. So do gas grills with poor ventilation. Even curing salts (sodium nitrite) can create a smoke ring.

A smoke ring proves NO was present. It doesn't prove the meat has smoke flavor.

III. Terroir: It's Not Just for Wine

Here's something that blew our minds a little: where wood grows might matter as much as what species it is.

The concept is called terroir — a French word from the wine industry meaning "sense of place." The idea is that soil composition, climate, elevation, and growing conditions all affect the final product.

Applied to firewood: hickory grown in the Appalachian hills of Kentucky, in our soil, with our weather, will have a different lignin composition than hickory grown in Texas. Same species, different flavor profile.

We're not wine snobs about it. But it does make us appreciate what we've got access to here in northeastern Kentucky — mature hardwoods that have been growing in this specific terroir for decades.

IV. What This Blog Will Be

We're not going to use this space to sell you firewood. You know where to find that.

This blog is for the other stuff:

• The science behind why good wood burns better
• Answers to questions we get from customers (and curious Canadians)
• Seasonal tips for heating and smoking
• Behind-the-scenes looks at how we process and verify our wood
• Collaborations with people who geek out about this stuff as much as we do

If you've got a question — or a research document you've been working on at 2 AM — send it our way. Worst case, we learn something. Best case, we end up on the phone for an hour and it turns into a blog post.