Measurement versus weight of “green” wood has been decided by the Federal Government years ago and must be sold only by Measurement!
SmokinLicious® receives this question ALL the time! Where can I find how much your product weighs?
We know consumers compare prices. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, we encourage comparison of our products to others on the market. The only problem is, many brands are selling by weight in the USA which is not the legal method for selling cooking wood chunks and chips.
There is a Law!
Need the regulation?
The National Conference on Weights and Measures -Uniform Regulation for the Method of Sale of Commodities, has very specific regulations regarding the sale of “Stove Wood” or “Flavoring Chips“. Regulation 2.43. (a) specifies that “Natural wood offered for sale in a packaged form…shall display the quantity in terms of cubic meters, to include decimal fractions of cubic meters; or cubic feet, to include cubic feet.”
What does that all mean? The short answer is, selling by weight is not fair to the buyer. If you purchased a bag of wood chips weighing 6 lbs., that same bag purchased a few months later may only weigh 4 lbs. yet, the price remained unchanged. An even better example is with hardwood chunks. Say a seller offers 10lbs. of chunks for a set price. The first time you buy, you get a 12x12x12 box but the 2nd time, the box is only 12x8x8. Same cost but the box suddenly shrunk. Why?? Wood naturally adjusts to temperature and humidity which results in weight changes. The denser and wetter the wood, the higher the weight. Dry it out, and you lighten up the weight.
Kiln Dried, Air Dried, Heat Treated – What Does It All Mean?
The nature of our SmokinLicious® products, products that have a controlled heat treatment process applied to it rather than kiln drying, is that they will continue to lose weight the longer they remain in storage. This is the natural dehydration process of timbered hardwood.
When the wood is initially processed it has a much higher moisture level making it quite heavy. Most would refer to this as “green” wood or unseasoned. Once heat treated to ensure thermal death time of any microbials and pests, the wood will weigh more than when it is packaged for the customer at the time an order is placed. This is the natural seasoning process affecting the weight of the wood and the main reason why regulations are in place to ensure a fair competitive market.
Be Wary of Those Who Sell By Weight
SmokinLicious® never advertises the weight of our products. In fact, the reason that we include the shipping cost into our prices is to eliminate this as a concern for our customers.
If you find products on the market that are selling by weight, we encourage you to seek further information from the supplier in order to know just what you are paying for. Many wood products labeled as suitable for grilling and smoking may actually contain little to no moisture. Rather than release flavor to your foods, these woods can potentially only offer heat which can render foods overcooked. Especially those woods packaged in plastic bags should be suspect as these are likely too DRY for your smoking and grilling application.
Dr. Smoke
Dr. Smoke, we comply with the Federal regulations on the sale of wood and ONLY sell or quote in measurement versus weight. Remember you don’t purchase a pound of 2 x 4’s