We weren't talking about cooking planks, we were talking about wood to smoke with, but still this is a very good idea. Thanks for sharing.

I think that I would soak the wood for 1-2 hours if I used old wood, but I want to try to find some green wood somewhere that I can buy for this type of cooking. There are several BBQ shops in my area.

Lol....well, growing up in the country, we had LOTS of mesquite trees. I would just cut off some branches. Now, I just buy the chips in the store and soak them for a few hours.

I have a cousin that runs a shop that makes and sells a delicious smoked Polish kielbasa in a small town in Pennsylvania and they smoke with hickory because it's so readily available.

I have to say hickory is my first choice, just based on the flavor.

However, with its being summer we plan on trying a lot of new woods to experiment with new tastes.

I've cooked chicken a couple times on a plank of cedar wood. The plank is a smooth flat piece of wood almost like a cedar shingle, except it's smooth. It takes a little longer to cook usining the plank when compared with straight cooking on the grill. What makes this great is that while cooking on the plank,the top gets hot like a pan, and the bottom burns and produces smoke. The final result is amazingly tasty. This really is well suited for chicken that needs to cook for some period of time.