I pruned my citrus last weekend and BBQ was not in my mind when I did it. But I missed the smoked salmon so much that I have to do it, so I rummaged back to the pile of pruned stuff and pulled back the citruses and made that into smoke chips. It is hard to remember that you need it for the barbecue when you are doing the pruning during the winter to early spring time. So this post is a reminder.

Whenever you prune citruses to control their sizes, saved off the stems. Primarily, you remove the leaves and cut the stems into 2 inch long pcs. Now take one big citruse leaf, lay it flat and put 5 of the 2" cut pcs unto it and roll it. Roll them also inside aluminum foil that you can seal both ends. Store in the freezer. You now have several rolls of citrus chips for BBQ smoking.

Whenever you BBQ something and want smoke flavor, get the aluminum foil with citrus sticks inside it, tear off the ends of the foil or open the ends, then throw into the middle of the glowing charcoal. Makes nice steady smoke that is very pleasant.

I just did that to a salmon last night. This one, I smoke the salmon, about 2 hours time and used up about 5 rolls of citrus chips. Very nice indeed. Brings out the flavor of the fish and the nice smoke. A lot better than the most expensive smoke chips from the store.

So next time when you prune your citruses, do this one last use from those branches.