Spanish cedar for grilling salmon?

[Brian Hale]

Has anyone tried this?

I came into a LOT of 8/4 spanish cedar for basically nothing and i considering grilling some salmon on it, any reason this is a bad idea? This stuff is extremely aromatic.

Thanks!
Brian :)

[russell dietrich]

One of our carvers uses spanish cedar exclusively for carving. There is no aroma that I know of. The stuff he uses is on the brown side. If yours is reddish color it may be aromatic cedar, which does have oil in the wood.

[Brian Hale]

There's a few boards that are darker in color and have little aroma, perhaps from being stacked with the others. Any thoughts on which would be better?

I'm more than willing to try both...... Just a little concerned about if it's bad for my health.

[Wade Lippman]

It is an expensive wood. Sell it and buy some cheap red cedar.

[Brian Hale]

I hear what your saying Wade.

Checking a few prices on Amazon, cedar grilling planks cost about $14/bd ft

[Jim Becker]

We just get the pre-made grilling cedar planks from Wegmans for this...they are not expensive and we know it's the right type for the purpose. Due to my grill's heat, we rarely get more than one shot with a board, however...

[Bob Coleman]

My experience with Spanish cedar leads me to think it would not be so good for grilling. It smells good when milled, but I kind of cringe at the thought of that smell in my food. My granddad liked it for secondary wood (drawer sides, web frames, etc) so I have tons of the stuff lying around. (Granddad was known for buying in bulk. He once bought a semi truck full of screws. Just because). It works great and cutting dovetails is ridiculously easy.

[Ryan Mooney]

Checking a few prices on Amazon, cedar grilling planks cost about $14/bd ft

They're just western red cedar though. I ended up with a lifetime of grilling planks from cut offs from the fence boards I used to put up our yard fence ~10 years ago. I do have to run them through the planer to knock off the fuzzies (both sides - minimizes the "catches on fire" situation a bit as well - smoother wood chars more than burns).

http://www.homedepot.com/p/5-8-in-x-5-1-2-in-x-6-ft-Western-Red-Cedar-Dog-Ear-Fence-Picket-63023/205757688 $2.55 for 6' worth which is at least three maybe four planks.

I paid under $1.00 per 6' length when I bought them because the local lumber yard (not HD) had a couple pallets 6.25" wide ones that were "mistake cuts" instead of the 6" nominal they were supposed to be and their customer had rejected them. The fellow warned me I wouldn't be able to get exact matched boards, but at the time it was close to 50% off of their regular price I was willing to take that chance :D

I'd save the spanish cedar for something else or sell it and buy some western red at ~1/4 the price (not from amazon).

[Stan Calow]

Spanish cedar is not really a cedar, is it? Come to think of it, neither is eastern red (aromatic) cedar. I would think the salmon would taste of cigar boxes. Or hamster cages in the case of ERC.

[Sam Murdoch]

I would try grilling a hot dog first :rolleyes:. I have my doubts that the SC would enhance the taste of the salmon. Always impresses me as pretty toxic even though it is otherwise great to work with.

[Brian Hale]

Well call me brave (or stupid) but i tried it last night along with a store bought grilling plank. There is a slight difference in flavor but not enough to talk about. The spanish cedar caught fire just before the salmon reached 135 degrees (the other plank didn't) which most likely accounts for the slight difference flavor.

So it's a viable option if i don't have any store bought planks handy.

I paid $350 for 3 pickup trucks worth of wood which is pennies per board foot so cost is irrelevant and most of the wood is Much more valuable than the cedar so it doesn't bother me to cut 5" off the end of a 12" board for some good grilling meals. Some day, when i'm gone, the kids will be stuck with selling it and should make a good profit :cool:

Thanks again for everybody's input !!!

Brian :)

[Roger Feeley]

Brian, where did you get the wood. I will be building a new shop and would love to cover a wall or two in cedar or something. PM me if you are willing to share the love.

[Brian Hale]

Craigslist. It was a guy getting rid of his grandfathers stuff so they could sell the house and all he could say about the wood is that his grandfather worked at a wood importer business and brought home "Off Sized" boards at a cheap price for his own working hobby.

Unfortunately i'm not looking to part with wood right now. I just retired this year on New Years Day and am looking forward to creating lots of kindling :rolleyes: