basswood for firewood

[PA mapler]

I've been thinning out the sugar bush, and alot of the trees I've been cutting out are basswood. Does anyone have an opinion on using basswood for the evaporator? The stuff is so light, am I wasting my time hauling, splitting and stacking it? The plus side is that is IS light, and splits like a dream.

[MaplePancakeMan]

similar question: does anyone use just pine wood? Huge stand of pine came down in december and its been laying around ever since. Will the sap adhere to the pans and cause build up?

[ennismaple]

We burn a lot of basswood - 60 full chords per year or more. It splits nice and fine and burns well. We figure it's worth more to us as evaporator wood than as pulp.

We do burn the occassional bit of pine but not much.

[chipa]

Pine is great wood for the evaporator; it lights fast and greats alot of flame.

It just doesnt last as long as hardwood

[mountainvan]

Basswood is the lowest in btus of the "hardwoods". Personally I leave it in the woods, around here the stuff is like a sponge. As for the pine I mix it with the hardwood.

[Lwood]

I mix the pine in with the hardwood but as an experiment I fed the evaporator just dry pine ( approx 5 years old ) and the evaporation rate jumped up about 6 gal per hour! But it was really going through wood in a hurry.

[Dave Y]

Hey Beth,
Take that basswood to the mill and have it cut into boards. I would take it to make fur forms with. Also wood carvers like it.

[Fred Henderson]

I will tell ya what Basswood would be better than no wood at all. If I cut it I will burn it . It will all make smoke and syrup.

[PA mapler]

Thanks for the input guys! I have a couple cords already cut, split and stacked, mixed in with maple and birch, and have three more trees out in the woods that are already cut up. I'll bring them in too, and I'll try it one year and see how it works. I really hate to let stuff rot in the woods, but it needs to be cut out no matter what. But then I don't want to install a revolving door on the arch, either!

The basswood is fun to split, though. It looks, feels, smells, and sounds just like a puffball mushroom when you break one open.

We had some basswood cut into 2x4's, and it works OK, but we also have cucumber coming out of our ears, and that makes better boards. The sugar shack is made out of cucumber. And neither is very pretty, and if I had it to do over, I'da used hemlock instead.

[Fred Henderson]

What is cucumber? I never heard of it.

[HanginAround]

I was wondering the same thing.... the only cucumber I've seen I slice up with cream and vinegar on it :)

[Fred Henderson]

It must be a slang name.

[PA mapler]

Cucumber: Cucumbertree, Cucumber Magnolia (Magnolia acuminata). It's a common low-value timber tree here, the wood is hard to tell apart from yellow poplar (or tulip tree). It grows tall, fast, straight, has big wide tropical-looking leaves. The wood is soft-ish, but not as soft as basswood. But you can drive nails in it pretty easy, which is why we used it for the shack.

Now cucumber with cream and vinegar. . . .that just sounds plain gross! Maybe that's a regional thang. . . .we ditch the cream and use lots of salt. . . yummm

[ennismaple]

Basswood would never be our preferance but we've got so much of it that we either sell it or burn it. Leaving it standing in the bush isn't an option because we need to thin the bush out to release the maples. The syrup boiled by a chord of basswood is worth a lot more than it's worth at the mill. Plus, we cut the wood for our main evaporator to 44" in length so basswood's straight grain makes splitting easy.

[HanginAround]

PA, it's the best... slice a bit of onion into it, slice up cukes, add cream, vinegar, pepper, a little bit of sugar. Mash up yer spuds with your fork and ladle the cukes and juice all over them.... MmmmMMMMmmm GOOD!

It is regional, but even them, you wouldn't likely find it in the home of anyone under 50, you gotta go to Gram's house for it LOL. It's a summer staple there.

[Dave Y]

Beth,
Down here we call it milk and cukes. but it does have vinagar in it salt pepper the like. and yes Im over 50. and my grandmother made it also!

[PA mapler]

Doesn't the vinegar curdle the cream or milk? I just can't get past that thought. But seeing's how I'm not yet 50, I'm willing to listen to the wisdom of my elders!

[Jim Brown]

Hey Guys I live with Granda ma and we eat it as soon as athe cukes are ready!

[HanginAround]

Beth, it doesn't seem to curdle it, not sure why. It's kinda like sour cream on baked spuds, except more vinegary and of course runnier so it soakes in better.

[PA mapler]

Y'know, I just might have to try this once the cucs come out. Gonna have to leave the onions out, though, onions still make me turn green if I accidentally munch on one.

Hey one more dumb basswood question. Do you split it bigger than the harder woods?

[andyp]

I thought every ate cucs with cream and vinegar,and onions all good healthy food like maple syrup.

andyp

[PA mapler]

OK I'm starting to think my upbringing was neglected! Grandma made the strawberry-rhubarb pie with a half inch of lard crust, and bourbon balls with lots of real bourbon, but never the cucs with cream. I wonder what else I'm missing?:)

[Al]

We have a bee keeper around here that swears by bass wood for his hives. Who knows? If it burns I mix it in. Just like white birch we burn it. I have a small lot and burn what I have.
take care,
Al

[maple flats]

I also burn whatever need to be removed for my timber stand improvement. If it is not clean enough to go home it burns in the evap. The evap still gets a majority of solid stuff though. I also mix in some soft slab since I have a sawmill and always have slab to get rid of. I try to keep the slab in the evap down to 1/4 or less at any fueling, usually less. I also offer slab to my visitors but they need to cut their own generally. Some take it for camp fires.
Dave

[Dave Y]

Beth, if you spent anytime in the woods you would have dug sasafrass roots and picked elderberries for pie and jelly. Nothing better than Iced sasafrass tea.

[PA mapler]

Beth, if you spent anytime in the woods you would have dug sasafrass roots and picked elderberries for pie and jelly. Nothing better than Iced sasafrass tea.

I spent all my time in the woods, and still do thru work and play, but I was the odd-ball in my family. My early education was trial-and-error. Don't eat the seeds of the jack-in-the-pulpit!

[Maplewalnut]

Dave,

I prefer sumac tea over sassafras anyday!

[Dave Y]

Maplewalnut.

I never tried sumac, always thought it was poison.
By the way what is a maplewalnut?!

[PA mapler]

I actually made sumac-ade; crush the berries in water, filter it, then add sugar. Very good.

[Maplewalnut]

Staghorn sumac is the bush/tree you see growing usually on the side of interstates or roads. It is the plant with the large red flower heads. Pick about 6 or seven heads, preferably after a couple days of dry weather and put them in a glass container, let them steep like 'sun-tea' for a few hours. Run it through some cheesecloth or syrup prefilter add ice and try. Very little sugar if any is needed this time of year.

Maplewalnut is my kids favorite ice cream topping. Maple syrup and walnuts!