Curious - how many tea lights did you use, because while I usually leave mine in there for the duration, I’ve never noticed the taste? Makes me wonder if the wood hasn’t had some kind of chemical treatment in that case.
Shouldn’t have - it was from a reputable source that supplies sawdust/chips specifically for smoking. However, we’ve put it on one side until the summer when we might try hot smoking and I’ve ordered some more dust from another smoking supplier. Will be interesting to see…
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Does it say what wood it was from ?.
Yes, it was oak. I’ve been trying different wood to see what the flavours were like. Started with a beech and alder mix, then beech, and now oak.
I’ve been wondering and I’m sure someone will be able to tell me -
According to various sources, the Scottish (and London) way of smoking salmon is to use oak. However, here in France, most commercial smoked salmon seems to use beech, unless it’s labelled as “Scottish Salmon”.
This leads to my question - all the French sites which sell sawdust for smoking says that oak is NOT to be used for fish, only meat and game, as it’s too strong.
So - knowing that there are hundreds of different oak species, is it possible that the oak used for making sawdust in France is different from the oak we are used to in the UK? 
It’s down to national tastes, UK tends to like a strong smoked flavour as that’s what we are used to, the French a lot less so.
It’s like our tastes in curries, curries like a Madras or vindeloo the French would not touch normally, I have made very mild korma curries that the French have found too hot.
Ah - so that’s the reason! I did wonder…
I’ve just done my first-ever curing of duck breasts which are now hanging up air drying with the idea that they will be oak-smoked in a couple of weeks time. I shall have another go with the salmon then, if we don’t have some really good smoking days before 
Morning all
Question for the experts
My neighbours have just cut down some ash trees. They chipped the small branches and I have 3 large bags of chippings.
If i dry these out will they be ok to use for smoking. I am currently drying them out in an out building.
Andy
Morning Andy
I hope someone other than me can answer as I’m only starting to learn myself! The only thing I can say is that if you have chippings rather than sawdust, they probably wont work for cold smoking, only hot smoking (that is if ash is at all ok!) The oak chips I tried to do cold smoking with were a disaster so I’m saving them for my first attempt at hot smoking when the weather warms up a bit…
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You need a fineish dust for cold smoking, but chips can work on the BBQ for hot smoking.
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Snap!!! Do you know if ash is an ok wood to use at all?
I have found this a handy forum.
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The first of those links is particulary useful @Griffin36 - thank you!
Just a quick question - I know for cold-smoking the sawdust needs to be really dry - does the same apply to hot smoking and if so, how do you dry it?
For hot smoking where you sprinkle wood on BBQ coals AFAIK it should be made wet before adding - otherwise it will burn quickly instead of smoking.
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That’s useful to know - thank you @Ancient_Mariner . It’s sooooo much easier to make wood wet than to dry it
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Especially at this time of year 
Makes me think of our Canadian friends who light the BBQ when it’s -20 outside. 
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We use chips for cold smoking in our wooden smoker. The fire box is over a meter away from smoking chamber so smoke cools down enough.
And yes we bbq all year!
And damp for hot smokimg…
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That sounds very practical, @JaneJones - if our experiments go well, we are thinking about building something like that but at the moment we are using something that looks like a tall lidded barbecue!
Calling all cold smoking experts! I followed the instructions for cold smoking duck, which had to be treated and then air dried for two weeks. The two weeks are up so I went to look at the duck and it looks mouldy to me. I think it may not be safe to continue. Has anyone else had this problem?