Got Wood? What kind?

[dennisn418]

I have a ton of pine....no use to head the house BUT......would it suffice for the arch? Hard to think of using the seasoned red oak....but what so do others do?

[Scm]

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[BAP]

Pine will work great. Burns hot, just take a little more often firing than hardwood.

[Russell Lampron]

If it had leaves or needles on it I burn it. Pine will be fine but you will have to fire more often because it burns up quick. The neighbor had some big old sugar maples cut down and gave me the wood. So yes I'm even using maple to make my syrup. I have found that if I split a large round into slabs about 3" thick I can then split those into wrist size pieces and fill up my woodshed pretty fast.

Scm, If I didn't have some big rounds of seasoned red oak in my field last year I would have had to pull the plug about mid season when I ran out of wood. You may think it's a sin to burn nice oak in the evaporator but I'll burn anything here. No wood is sacred, not even maple.

[Scm]

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[sbingham]

I’ve mixed softwoods - pine, basswood, etc with hardwoods and it seems to work very well.
As long as it is seasoned, it all burns good.

[Mikemartin274]

I sell 🔥 wood to fund my hobbies. If theirs softer hardwoods or any tree that doesn't sell well as heating fuel it becomes sugarwood. If it's seasoned it will all boil sap. I don't burn anything with nails. Theirs alot of ash involved and it's easier and beneficial to spread it throughout the sugar Bush and garden. You can burn it all but you may need more softwoods and will have to refire the evaporator every 5 minutes instead of seven or so.

[Russell Lampron]

When you’re in a bind you gotta do what you gotta do. That’s for sure. But. If you have a ton of pine, you shouldn’t even consider the oak yet. I like the pallets. Usually a decent mix of hard/soft woods.

I agree and i usually have a ton of pine. I like to burn the pine in my outdoor wood boiler too, it keeps the coals under control. Both the OWB and evaporator get a mixture of hardwood and softwood. The wood stove in the house gets only hardwood.

[bigschuss]

I have a ton of pine....no use to head the house BUT......would it suffice for the arch? Hard to think of using the seasoned red oak....but what so do others do?

I have a ton of spruce and fir and that all gets burned in the evaporator. Your pine will be fine. It burns hot and fast so you'll have to fire more often. Use it up!

[ronintank]

I am still cleaning my woods of the ash trees killed by the emerald ash borer so right now I heat the house and make syrup with white ash.
All of my beech trees are dieing of beech scale so for the next few years it will be beech.
I don,t know what is next but I hope it,s not the Asian beatles .

[maple flats]

Burn whatever you have and save the good stuff for the house. The only issue I've seen with pine is that it needs to be split. If the bark is on it all around it will not burn good, if the bark is gone it does burn good. Even on sizes you might not usually slipt if the have full bark cover, split it once. I discovered that when I had a real odd shaped chunk of Scotch Pine that just did not want to get split because of the very odd angles it was cut. So I decided I'd let the fire split it. I boiled with than piece in the fire for several hours with an extremely hot fire. The next day, it was still in there and was just darkened, I don't think any of it had burned. I took it out and let it decay in the woods. I also have a sawmill, slab burns with bark on one side and the bark does too, maybe from the wood side out. Pine has a fire retardant in the bark to protect it in a forest fire.

[TerryF]

Used green pine slabs from a sawmill once and in half a day creosote was running down the stack in rivers. Went to maple and life got better. Used dry hemlock slabs and it was awesome, hemlock bark makes a great fire. Best is dry tamarack but it's hard to get enough of it, same with ironwood. Been using maple veneer cores split up to about 2" from local veneer mill for yrs.

[Sinzibuckwud]

I burned several dead standing white pines a few years back.The wood was very punky but dry as a bone, we had to put in half split rounds anything smaller and you would have to stand there and constantly shovel it in, burned hot though. This year yellow birch,beech,oak I have two dead hemlocks as a backup to buy a little time.


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[RileySugarbush]

We lose enough trees in our poorly managed bush that we always have plenty of hardwood. maple, red and burr oak, ironwood, Green ash and some elm. Plus scraps from the shop and home projects. Always a nice mix, but mostly hardwood.

[fisheatingbagel]

I made the mistake of taking some willow wood from a neighbor a few years ago. That stuff is so soft and punky it can't be split.

[BSD]

red oak slabwood from a saw mill and some pallets

[Greenthumb]

Pine - free pine a friend drops off from his property (he has hundreds of pines and is always cleaning up a wind fall tree or one he wants gone. He cuts it into rounds and drops it off near my shack. All I have to do is split. Can’t beat that

[Greenthumb]

Pine - free pine a friend drops off from his property (he has hundreds of pines and is always cleaning up a wind fall tree or one he wants gone. He cuts it into rounds and drops it off near my shack. All I have to do is split. Can’t beat that
I save the hardwood for the House wood stove

[Mille705]

100% Dead ash. Unfortunately it has been dying for several years and going to be gone soon. Dad and I was just talking about it today wondering what our next wood species was going to be.

[McKenney Maples]

Pine and Spruce with the occasional Fir. I’ve used hardwood in the past but find free pine easy to come by in my area. Plus I end up with an endless supply of kindling wood for the house.

[HawkeyeMike]

I have 40 acres of woods where the sugar bush is...here in Illinois, at least on my land, the maples are few and far between. In 40 acres, I have enough maples to support maybe 100 taps. We have lots of black walnut, ash, oak, and some crazy varieties like Kentucky Coffeetree. I've learned that when it comes time to boil, the species of wood matters much less than two other factors: is it split finely enough, and has it been dried. This year, I've been boiling with a pile of 2-year dried walnut and it has been great. Last year, we had nothing that had been dried for more than one year, and it was a noticeably slower boil. One thing we don't have, is a shortage of firewood...but it seems I'm learning that I should be preparing 2-3 years in advance for syrup season so the wood is fully dried and ready to burn.

[Scm]

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[HawkeyeMike]

If you don’t you can tap your black walnut. Don’t burn those.
The black walnut is valuable for lumber...good large trees bring in $$$. If I tap, they will lose their value. (Although I tapped one by accident when I first started making syrup because, well, I'm not too bright :))
When we harvest a walnut, there is tons of firewood to be had from the large branches. That's what's been firing my evaporator the last few years.

[Userj8670]

I'm using hickory

[Jonnie Maple]

Mostly red oak, hickory, ash and maple. only use dead/down trees. Had a friend tear up his oak flooring and mix that in also.

[Scm]

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[GeneralStark]

We have 16 species of tree in our woods and we burn it all in the evap. Right now we are burning mostly punky popple (big-tooth aspen) and some maple, hickory, beech ash, black birch, hop hornbeam and hemlock mixed in.

The popple would never burn in a traditional rig but the intens-o-fire just eats it up...