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What surprises me is that we are absolutely surrounded by red oak, to the point where it’s almost all I burn for heating my house some years, and I’ve never even heard of anyone using it for a BBQ. Most here seem to use hickory, or import mesquite.
Where I am on the central coast of California it’s pretty much all we use for bbq. Occasionally, we’ll use chunks of another type to smoke with for ribs etc., but we have what are called Santa Maria style barbecue pits and it’s a unique type of grill with no lid and a cooking grate that moves up and down to control heat over a Red Oak wood fire (no charcoal). This is how we cook our Tri-Tip which is a cut of meat that is also local but is slowly making its way out. Most people elsewhere want wood to die down to coals before cooking but we use a blazing flame just like a campfire. watch this video, I think you’ll find it cool.
 
I've never heard of anybody going out of their way for it to cook with either.
Red oak is pretty much all we use here. We have Santa Maria Style BBQ pits which have no lid and a grate that moves up and down to control heat over an open Red Oak flame. That’s how we cook Tri-Tip which is a cut that is local to us to but beginning to spread around the country. Watch this video, you’ll find it cool.
 
Probably because they are using amateur hour $200 Home Depot wood chip smokers and not $1000+ stick burners you feed splits.

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We’re not using smokers. Santa Maria Style bbq is tri-tip (local to our area) cooked over a unique type of pit with a moveable grate and no lid that you cook over an open red oak flame with. It’s by far the best type of wood for it.
 
Tri-tip is a pretty standard cut here in Ohio as well.....thats an interesting method of bbq'ing.....

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