• Timports
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Key Takeaways Avoid wet wood: Stick to kiln dried wood or heat logs (under 10% moisture) for clean, high heat without acrid smoke. Build a solid base: Use 100% natural heat logs to quickly establish a hot, clean-burning coal bed. Use Beech for high heat: Ideal for pizza ovens; it burns hot and fast with mild smoke and won't spit. Use Oak for low-and-slow: Perfect for smoking and heavy meats; provides a long burn with robust flavour. Prioritise food-safe fuel: Ensure your wood is fully certified, natural, and free of chemicals or binders. |
Whether you are firing up a wood-fuelled pizza oven, managing a low-and-slow smoker, or gathering around a back garden BBQ, cooking with real wood is a rewarding experience that appeals to all the senses.
The right wood can elevate your culinary creations, enhancing the flavours of meats, fish, and vegetables with subtle or intense smoky profiles. However, the secret to a perfect outdoor feast lies not just in your recipes, but in the fuel you choose.
If you have ever struggled with a smoky, sputtering BBQ or a pizza oven that refuses to reach the right temperature, your fuel is likely the culprit. That’s why we’re sharing our top tips for optimising your outdoor cooking using premium heat logs and kiln dried wood.
1. Ensure the Wood is Dry - Wet Wood Ruins Outdoor Cooking
The single biggest mistake you can make when cooking outdoors is using wet wood. Damp wood fails to reach optimal cooking temperatures, creates excessive, acrid smoke that taints the flavour of your food, and produces a messy burn.
Beyond ruining your meal, burning wet wood also poses significant environmental and health concerns.
Damp wood dramatically increases particulate matter (PM) emissions and reduces combustion efficiency; burning properly seasoned or kiln dried wood significantly lowers these toxic emissions compared to wet wood (Smołka-Danielowska & Jabłońska, 2021).
Furthermore, what environmental regulators are trying to eradicate is the burning of uncertified, unseasoned wet wood. To achieve a clean cook, Timports’ kiln dried products and heat logs are the ultimate solution.
Storing wood properly to keep it dry is key. Oliver Webber, co-founder of Timports explains:
“Keep
2. Build a Reliable Base with Heat Logs
Heat logs, or briquettes, burn at a very consistent, predictable temperature for a long time. They are ideal for longer cooks, indirect grilling, or when you need steady heat without overseeing it consistently.
With their ultra-low moisture content, Timports heat logs are the perfect starter fuel to quickly establish a clean, high-heat coal bed with minimal smoke before adding your cooking wood.
Heat logs often produce a strong initial flame. Wait 30–45 minutes until the logs collapse into a dense bed of glowing, white-ash embers. This prevents flare-ups that can burn the outside of your food before the inside cooks.
Cooking over a long afternoon? Extend the life of your fuel by tapping standard heat logs in half.
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Pini Kay hardwood briquettes Material: Oak and Hornbeam hardwood sawdust Moisture Content: Below 5% |
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3. Choose Beech Logs for Pizza Ovens and High Heat
Achieving temperatures above 400 degrees Celsius is easy when using wood with a moisture content below 10%. For wood-fired pizza ovens, beech burns extremely hot and fast, making it perfect for maintaining the high temperatures needed for pizza, while producing a mild smoke that won't overpower the food.
Oliver Webber, reflecting on the success of FLAM.ECO products, highlights exactly why chefs prefer this wood:
"It's always the beech that we recommend. It's easy to get up to temperature. It's easy to control. It doesn't spit and pop like some other woods, which you don't want happening on your pizza... The heat output from the beech is amazing, which is what they need."
For smaller domestic setups, Timports offers tailored solutions:
“For some smaller pizza ovens, we have a smaller product. It's like a stave… there's a bit more surface area, so you're less likely to have a log smouldering away, so it's easier for the chefs to control. There's no there's no volatiles. It's just a nice clean timber.”
4. Use Oak for Low-and-Slow Smoking
If your goal is to smoke fish or grill heavy meats, you need a fuel that delivers a more intense flavour and a longer burn. As a dense hardwood, oak provides a long, slow burn and a robust, classic smoke flavour ideal for hog roasts, briskets, and heavy meats.
"We provide oak to people that smoke fish or grill some heavy meats," explains Webber.
Oak breaks down into a reliable bed of hot coals, ensuring sustained cooking temperatures for hours.
5. Prioritise Food-Safe, Certified Wood
Safety and flavour go hand-in-hand. When cooking outdoors, you must ensure your fuel is free of toxins.
FLAM.ECO wood is 100% natural, meaning chemical treatments or artificial binding agents are never used in our culinary wood products. Bark and sap are also minimised to prevent acrid smoke from tainting the flavour of your food.
All FLAM.ECO and Timports products are fully certified and ready to burn, giving you peace of mind whether you are cooking in a smokeless zone or your own backyard.
Shop FLAM.ECOQuick Reference: Choosing Your Cooking Fuel
| Fuel Type | Best Used For | Key Benefit |
| Kiln Dried Beech | Pizza ovens, grilling, baking fish. | Burns hot and fast without spitting; mild smoke flavour. |
| Kiln Dried Oak | Smoking heavy meats, hog roasts, and briskets. | Long, slow burn with a robust, intense smoke profile. |
| Pini Kay Heat Logs | BBQs, fire pits, building a base fire. | Ultra-low moisture (<5%), instant high heat, 100% hardwood. |
Get started cooking outdoors
Frequently Asked Questions
Are heat logs food-safe?
Yes, provided you buy 100% natural logs. Timports' heat logs contain no chemical treatments, artificial binding agents, or glues. The sawdust is bound together entirely by the extreme pressure and the natural lignins in the wood, making it perfectly safe for grilling and smoking.
Will heat logs change the flavour of my food?
Heat logs produce a very clean, neutral burn because they lack bark and sap. They will not impart the strong, specific smoke profiles of whole oak logs. For this reason, many pitmasters use heat logs to build their heat base, then add a few chunks of traditional kiln dried hardwood to provide the desired smoke flavour.
Are logs legal to burn in smoke control areas?
Yes. Because properly kiln dried firewood and high-quality heat logs burn so cleanly, they are fully compliant.
"Ultimately, kiln firewood is classed as a smokeless fuel. So, in the smokeless zone, they can use any certified firewood and our certificates are published as well. So the pizza ovens, the stoves, absolutely fine to be burnt as long as it's compliant, certified timber or the smokeless fuel... What they're trying to eradicate or what is not allowed to be burnt is uncertified, unseasoned wetwood. As long as it's certified drywood, that's fine."
How should I store heat logs and kiln dried logs?
Heat logs act like sponges if exposed to water. They must be stored in a dry, well-ventilated indoor area (like a shed or garage). Never store them outside under a simple tarpaulin, as ground moisture and humidity will cause them to swell and fall apart.
Stock Up for the BBQ and Pizza Season
To guarantee a successful, smoke-free, and delicious outdoor cooking experience, you need the right fuel on hand.
Explore the full range of Timports heat logs and kiln dried wood today to establish a solid, high-heat foundation for all your culinary creations.