The BBQ Block is made from English oak sourced from woodland local to Reigate, in the Surrey and Kent area. When we say local, we mean that specifically — not as a marketing approximation, but as a deliberate sourcing decision with traceable supply.
Local sourcing is a phrase that has been used loosely enough that it’s lost some of its meaning. We want to be specific about what it means in our case, because the specificity is what makes it a real commitment rather than a claim.
Air-Dried vs Kiln-Dried
The planks we use are air-dried, not kiln-dried. This distinction matters for quality. Kiln-drying is faster — a controlled heat environment reduces moisture content in weeks rather than months or years. Air-drying is slower. Much slower. The rule of thumb for air-drying hardwood is one year per inch of thickness. Our boards are typically 4 to 5 centimetres thick — that’s 1.5 to 2 years of air-drying before the plank is ready to work with.
Why does this matter? Air-dried timber is more stable. The moisture content reduces gradually and evenly, which means the wood moves less after it’s been worked. It also retains more character — the tighter, more complex grain that slow drying produces. Kiln-dried oak looks like oak. Air-dried oak from local woodland looks like this specific oak, from this specific place, dried over this specific period of time. The difference is visible in the finished board.
Plank Selection
Not every plank that comes from the woodland goes into a BBQ Block. Each one is assessed individually before we commit it to the production process. The criteria:
- Straight grain for structural stability — boards with dramatically curved grain can move unpredictably over time
- No structural cracks — surface character is fine, cracks through the thickness are not
- Interesting natural character on the live edge — the reason we use live-edge material is to showcase what the tree actually looked like; a dull live edge defeats the purpose
Planks that don’t pass the assessment go back to the woodland for other uses. Nothing is wasted, but nothing that doesn’t meet the standard goes into a board.
Why the Sourcing Is Traceable
We know which woodland the timber came from. We know when it was milled and roughly when air-drying was complete. We know which planks went into which production batch. That traceability is not something we advertise on every page, but it exists. If a customer asks where the oak in their BBQ Block came from, we can tell them — a specific area of Surrey and Kent woodland, not a generic supply chain description. That’s what local actually means.
