The premiere issue of BBQWorld magazine arrived in the mail. It was loaded with great photos of cooking teams, a fun feature story about a champion bbq’r Mike Davis of Lotta Bull and lots of ads for awesome grills.
But what caught my eye was the feature written by Canadian Ted Reader (GQ magazine labeled him the “crazy Canuck barbecue kingpin”) about plank cooking.

Okay, what first caught my eye was this recipe for Planked Twinkies…

Cedar plank soaked in water
8 Twinkies
3/4 cup Nutella
6 Oreo cookie, smashed
1/2 cup mini-marshmallows
1/4 cup chocolate toffee pieces.

Put the Twinkies on the plank, cover with Nutella, sprinkle with Oreo chunks and chocolate toffee pieces. Heat until marshallows are golden and everything else is gooey.

That got me reading the rest of the recipes and in the mind that I’ll have to give plank cooking a go soon. Any old slab of untreated wood will do the trick with different woods providing different results as you can imagine. From the Grillin’ Fool came these tips (he’s writing about chips/chunks.)

First, soak the wood in hot water. Grillin’ Fool says this opens up the grain of the wood to release more flavor more quickly.

Opens the pores/fibers of the wood more and allows more water to be absorbed thus making the chops last longer once exposed to heat.

Grillin’ Fool has a long list of wood that he and his grill buddies have tested at his blog here.

Seems like he  and his gang have tried them all…

Everything from Alder to Walnut. Cherry to Mulberry. Lilac to Lemon. But which is the best wood? Different regions swear by different woods. Some say mesquite is the only way to go. Some say hickory. Some say that fruit woods should never be used. The Grillin Fools actually prefer the fruit woods. My cousin Tom and I prefer apple wood. My Dad prefers cherry. Cherry is my second fave while Tom claims he doesn’t like it all.

It will be hard to find planks of Lilac and Lemon, so I’ll start with an easy one.

I’ll keep you posted. Wish me luck!