What happens when you bake wood cookies wrapped in foil?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ย. 2024
- These two pieces of wood are going into the oven for several hours because I was curious what would happen, and now you're probably wondering too. I'm using white oak for this experiment, freshly cut from a dead tree. White oak has a closed-grain structure, unlike red oak which has more open pores. The closed pores make white oak more durable for outdoor projects, and for indoor projects where it might get wet, like cutting boards.
Freshly cut wood generally needs one year to air dry for every inch of thickness. Baking in the oven is not a good way to dry wood faster because it will dry the surface too quickly and crack, but I was curious how quickly the wood would dry despite the cracking. End grain tends to move moisture at a much faster rate than edge grain, so I was expecting for the unwrapped piece of wood to dry out more than it did.
If you want to learn more about baking wood in the oven, or sawing your own lumber, check out these two playlists:
Mill your own lumber to save money and build more awesome stuff
• Mill Your Own Lumber
Thermally modified wood for woodworking:
• Thermally modified wood
If you're looking for a moisture meter, this is the one I use in the video:
General pinless moisture meter: amzn.to/3hnlYvC
This video is not sponsored. I paid for everything and used my own time. As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission if you use the Amazon links to make a purchase.
I am rewatching this one again!! Back for more- I am trying to heat treat some Osage Orange/ Bodock/ hedge to kill insects. It had emerald ash borers when I got the logs initially and so I stripped the bark immediately and got all the live ones out that I could find. Hopefully the oven will take care of the rest
Interesting demo. Really shows how much moisture is in green wood and how long it takes to dry. We have a similar Samsung oven with the Convection feature. I noticed you had it the convection activated. I would think that the moving air in the oven would wick moisture away from the surface even faster. Did you do any runs with just "Bake."
Follow up question, do you "pre-drill" or do you "drill a pilot hole?" Part 2 of the follow up question, do you "pre-heat" or "warm to temperature." Feel lots of pressure when you answer this question, because 50% of the planet is about to dislike you. 🤣
I used to bake wood with a conventional oven. The convection air usually darkens the wood more evenly, but does contribute to faster drying. For the follow-up question, I proactively reduce cylindrical impediments, and optimize preparatory thermal conditions. I also own a cold-water heater.
@@TheSnekkerShow Nice! good tip of the convection setting for maintaining an even color.
1. I drill a pilot hole
2. Whenever I need to heat something up, I put it outside the house
I’ve been reading up on this. I have a handful of green 4” rounds that i need for a project as soon as possible. I would hate to ruin them. Your foil wrapped method is interesting. A combination of this and air drying might be the way. I’ve also read that a salt paste on the surface helps it not lose surface moisture as quick and helps mitigate checking/cracking. I’m thinking cook it in the oven an hour or two at a time at low temps and once the moistures been regulated, and pests eliminated, applying the salt paste and letting air dry. Not sure if the time saved is worth the trouble or if I should just take it to the local mill to throw in the kiln. Though they’re on a 3 month cycle so it’ll be 3 to 6 months before I get my hands on them.
It's tough to speed up the drying of 4" thick rounds, especially if it's a denser wood. A vacuum kiln would speed the drying, but those don't seem to be very common. I've had good luck with Pentacryl keeping the wood from cracking as it dries, but it doesn't accelerate the drying.
@@TheSnekkerShow i saw some stuff on pentacryl but it’s supposed to be harsh. Not sure if it’d be a good idea since i intend to make kitchen items with these. May just have to bite the bullet and be patient
Sweet very interesting
Excellent informative video. Subscribed.
Havent finished vid yet but i was just thinking about this kinda thing as far as accelerated drying without pressure chamber on woods that check and crack easily, get it hot to get everything nice and flexible but dont let the moisture escape as fast as it wants to bare, so it can do most of its moving while the lignin is hot.
As far as bugs and fungus goes even my oldest logs of red oak i have ( they spent probably just shy of 2 decades in the dirt) the heartwood is still in good condition, not perfect, softened a bit, obv the sapwood is gone. So just depends on if you need the sap and bark. But i could be wrong and only bit into the lucky pieces lol
lolllll you killed me with that wood fire pizza! i mean gas fire pizza..i mean gas fired wood pizza
The benefits of watching to the end
Very interesting video!
Could you give me more details on the plastic bag method? I have a round slice of apricot that is too big for my oven (24in diameter and 3 in thick). It has been sitting outside for a month (didnt know anything about slow drying). I'm ok with filling some cracks with clear expoxy. I was thinking of making a sun oven with cardboard foil etc like you do in school science class?
The plastic bag method is just an attempt to slow the rate at which the water evaporates. If the surface dries too quickly, the wood is more likely to crack. I just use the bag to absorb heat from the sun, which cooks out some moisture, and then I shake out some of that moisture and repeat.
I know this is 2yo but I have som black walnut pieces I'm trying to dry with out cracking. How would I adapt the foil method (temp and time) to ensure the moisture was drawn out without checking?
@DerrickOrtiz-g3l It's tough to draw the moisture out of the core without a vacuum kiln, but you could heat the wood, open the foil just enough to let some steam escape, rewrap it before the surface dries too much to let the moisture equalize, and repeat. I've done something similar outdoors using black bags and summer heat, but even then, it takes a long time to get the moisture out.
@@TheSnekkerShow Here's a stupid question; What would happen if you heat a pieces of wood in oil ?
Without causing the oil to flame out :P
@@michelalphonso6945 Depending on how wet the wood is, possible an an explosion and severe burns. I'm curious now, but I don't think I'll try that anytime soon.
Never thought a door it in an oven How about a closed area with a dehumidifier after the oven
Humidifiers, like ovens, will dry the surface first and crack the wood. The challenge is getting the moisture equalized throughout the piece. A vacuum chamber with a humidifier could help.
Learn to Goddamn type. What the hell were you trying to say?
Hi can you confirm what was the moisture of the piece which was baked wrapped in foil, unwrapped you mentioned 35
The meter only goes up to 35% for hardwoods, so I'm not sure what the exact level was.
Nice experiment! Love the pizza! Yum!
The oak-smoked pepperoni was pretty good. The crust needed some garlic butter.
Pretty iinteresting, that last piece of wood must have been from Spotsylvania! 🤣🛫
I hear it's considered a delicacy there.
Very interesting experiment!
I happen to live in tropics and few months ago I chainsawed 60cm diameter logs to a thickness of 40cm which allowed me to load it with a real struggle on my pickup truck
I planned to slice it the day after to 12cm but got busy and forgot about it for 4 months
The ambient temperature is 40C for 12 hours and drops to 35C at night.
Now...
I don't have a moisture meter but to be honest these 12cm slices feel dry as it can get and feel ready to be used for the mini round cookie tables build.
Your video made me so curious that I'll have to order a moisture meter tomorrow
My 12cm slices don't have any cracks and I cut vertical notch to confirm they are just as dry inside all the way through the height profile.
They were not under the direct sun but under the open walls roofing.
Please note that our humidity is like 95% ;)
The white oak I used in this video is very dense with closed pores, but I have dried other things much faster. You probably have fewer problems with cracking in your climate, but if you ever move the finished project inside an air-conditioned house it might still crack. It took me too long to buy a moisture meter, but it was a good investment.
@@TheSnekkerShow since you already researched the moisture meters, your recommendation is welcome!
yes the tropics are very good for drying wood, (it doesn't crack) but on the other hand it changes the geometry, so you need to put your pieces together the same day you milled your stock or it won't fit the next day. the flat boards also like to warp and twist more often than not.
what I noticed is, when I use 1.5 inches and above thick material, it pretty much stays flat. that's why most of my furniture is bold. when I used thin and flimsy boards, everything goes haywire and bunkers.
I also put 4 coats of boiled linseed oil, which makes the wood waterproof, and makes it look gorgeous as well. smells great too.
@@TigerCarpenter I put a link to the meter I own in the video description. There are probably better ones available, but this one has worked pretty well for me. The manual says the maximum depth of measurement is 3/4", so for thicker boards a little speculation is needed.
Help! So many questions. What did the foil look like after? I would like to try this method but I don’t want it to look like a mess. We are using the wood slices( 2”thick 10-12” circumference) as steps on the wall of our out door cat enclosure. Do the surface checks of the non covered slices affect the stability? How long and temp do you guesstimate I can expect to take in the oven. Do you recommend sticking with 179 or going up to 300? Finally we want to cut off a piece of each cookie so there is a flat surface flush to the wall. Is it better to cut it before or after drying?
Most of your questions depend on wood type and current moisture level. For the last one, cut the wood after you dry it it to minimize how much it moves after it's cut.
So will this stop it from cracking?
Slower drying helps reduce the risk of cracking. The foil mostly helps hold in some moisture so the surface doesn't dry too quickly while the inside is still wet.
What is the size and brand of your saw?
Laguna 14bx th-cam.com/video/5AFlrqKfaz4/w-d-xo.html
Very interesting video!
I have some very large Redoak cookies but don’t have enough aluminum foil to wrap one so was thinking about wrapping it up in some 4mil plastic and placing in a hot kiln.
Thoughts??
Depending on the kind of plastic, it might start to melt and create fumes over 200°F.
@@TheSnekkerShow I’d be scared to take my kiln over 150 since it’s made out of wood too. Besides the research I’ve seen indicates that’s all that’s needed to sanitize. Do you think it’ll still work at lower temperatures?
@@noneya2321 150°F is the temperature I use for my makeshift kiln, which is made of plastic, so you should be good.
@@TheSnekkerShow in your opinion, how long do you think it’ll take to properly dry an 50” x 3” thick Redoak cookie?
@@noneya2321 Too many variables for me to guess.
I have almost the exact same Samsung stove as you, mine is almost 13 years old now. The knobs are identical. One thing to watch out for is almost all the labels on the stainless panel around the knobs have mostly worn off now, probably from cleaning. I've had to use a tape label maker to replace the labels so the stove it still usable. Looks terrible. Very bad design, I'll never buy another Samsung stove again.
Good to know. My main complaint about this stove is that the top is bowed, so it's impossible to level any burner without making another one un-level. Makes it a little challenging to make crepes when everything runs downhill.
Thanks for trashing your stuff for us!
Happy to be of service
Makes me wonder why they call them cookies… they look more like pizzas! LOL
I’ve had varying luck at drying cookies… the only true success was when I sealed the end grain and air dried them in 4” thickness. Before cutting them into slices. But… they were riddled with bugs!
Several years ago, I cut down a red oak about 24” in diameter. It was green and too crooked to mill as lumber. So, I cut them into firewood length rounds and stacked them up next to the outside of my new woodshed.
That fall I brought out the splitter and started working through the stack. Everywhere the ends touched the corrugated galvanized siding, the zinc was completely dissolved. The tin was a mess of nearly perfectly round rust spots. My nice new shed wall had to be replaced!
I wonder if the coloration on the aluminum cookie might be a chemical reaction? Did you notice any effect on the foil?
Thanks for the demo! Nice job.
That's a good question. I was wondering before I started if the tannin in the oak would affect the aluminum, despite the lack of iron, and I'm still not sure if it was a factor. The aluminum did not appear to be affected. There's a method of darkening oak that involves soaking steel wool in vinegar, and then wiping the resulting liquid onto the wood to react with the tannin. As an impatient teenager, I once tried to accelerate the process by using muriatic acid instead of vinegar to dissolve the steel wool, which is how I learned how to create hydrogen gas. I'm not so surprised that the piece wrapped in aluminum got darker from heat, but I'm curious why the unwrapped one didn't. 300-400°F is the temperature range I normally use to darken wood.
@@TheSnekkerShow I used the steel wool darkening method on some white oak spindles that I had turned. It worked but one of the parts bowed from the moisture.
Surely there is a chemical reaction involved with the aluminum… it would be interesting to see what happens without the heat. I might try it the next time one I’m cutting a green white or red oak.
Thanx
rsrsrsrs... thank you for thrashing your stuff 😁
mmm pizza! :D
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What’s the point of drying it
Wood fibers expand or contract with changes in moisture, which can cause warping, twisting, cracking, etc. Wood can also be infested with bugs, and the heating/drying process takes care of that.