Best Wood I burned this Year

[RC Maple]

I burned through a few different kinds of wood this season. I did have one kind I hadn't used before though. I used to know everything that I had in the pile and this one I forgot. The wood was real light and wasn't heavy like the honey locust or ash I mostly burn. Usually when I burn for a whole day I end up shoveling coals out of the firebox when it gets too full. I have to take out the chunks of wood that are burning and set them outside then shovel the coals into a wheel barrow and dump them. After a clean out I am good for a few more hours. With this wood though, I could see the grate all day long and the firebox never got full of coals and it boiled great all day. After a lot of trying to remember I decided that the wood I had was some Catulpa that I had cut up and stacked. That was a treat to burn. Most of the wood I have is ash but I have some Honey Locust too. They are both rated pretty good as far as firewood usage is concerned. I was impressed with this lighter wood and wonder if other less dense woods burn down to nothing like this did?

[optionguru]

I use 1x10 pine scraps from a local lumber mill. Most of it is kiln dried. It burns fast and hot but I only had to clear out my ash a couple of times all season.

[BreezyHill]

I find the better it burns the less ash I have. Sumac is a light would that burns hot and fairly fast. dead dry pine was a kicker this season for me. The wife and son found two trees standing dead when they were out riding snowmobiles in the woods and went and cut them down and brought it back at the end of season. Had to mix it with other dried would or it would get too hot in the 4-6" size pieces. All season I would clean out every 2-3 days the ashes; but I put on a larger AUF fan and could see the ash on the arch ramp so I am sure some fly ash was blowing out the stack.

Ben

[n8hutch]

I burned a lot of Hemlock this year , if I fired with just the hemlock I could keep the doors glowing red & there was virtually no Coles when it came time to shut down, as I got low on the Hemlock I started mixing in some hardwood. The hardwood definitely gave me more ash. I have a lot of Hemlock that I need to cut in around my maples so I imagine I will be boiling with that for years to come. Still only had about a wheel borrow of ash at the end of the year. Lugged that down to Grams garden.

[RC Maple]

With about 40 more Ash trees to cut down and a few other dead ones to keep the woods cleaned up, I think about all the wood I will be burning will be the locust and ash. It was nice to see how some lighter wood burns though.

[lmathews]

From experience it sounds like basswood.I burn all popple and basswood

[MarkReynolds]

I burned a little bit of sugar maple, but for the most part black cherry was what I had at hand and it burned relatively good.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

i burned 4 to 5 cord this year all pine I might fill two sheetrock buckets with ash

[PACMAN]

I burn all Beach and love it. Never have coal build up and clean ashes every 4th boil.

[buckeye gold]

beech is pretty high on my list as well, but I burn what I have at hand. Proper drying is more important to me. If I'm going to cut wood specifically for sugaring I'm looking for a beech though.