Cedar Planks for Salmon

[catapault]

O.K. It's like this. We had the tree company here today to take down a standing dead ash near the road. If it went down on its own it power lines would also go down with it.

As long as the crew was here I had them take down two nearby standing dead field cedars. The base of both had a lot of good red heart wood. So I had them leave some firewood length butt pieces for me. Told Himself that he can make planks for cooking salmon. The commercially available cedar planks seem to be 15 inches long by 5 inches wide by about 5/8 inch thick.

So here are my questions for you - have you ever done this? Suggestions? I know that this is usually done on a grill. Could it be done in an oven with an interior / inside top grill (Wolf range)?

 

[Caspers Human]

Yes, you can make cedar plank salmon indoors, in your oven if you are careful not to overheat and burn the wood lest the resulting smoke fill your kitchen.

I have made cedar plank salmon in my kitchen oven, under the broiler.

You don't have to ask me how I know about the smoke.

I like the idea of using your own, homegrown wood for the planks.

The only difficulty I can imagine is to get the wood sawed into planks. Do you have the equipment necessary to do that or do you know somebody who can saw the logs into planks?

The nice thing, however, is when you have your own wood, you can saw it to whatever dimensions you want and you don't have to depend on the limited sizes that store bought offers.

 

[catapault]

Thank you! Caspers Human Himself will be able to create planks from these cedar offcuts. They are small enough to handle with the table saw. He has a diversity of wood working equipment in our basement. Every project, you see, required the acquisition of yet another device - planer, router, etc. Though it is true we had someone with a portable saw mill come to the bottom of our driveway to turn black walnut logs (from a tree on our property) into lumber. And Himself made a wonderful Macintosh style surround for the dining room fireplace. But those logs were of a size that it needed a tractor to drag them out of the woods. The cedar is manageable even for me to pick them up. Stay tuned for future developments . . .