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I have a dead Catalpa tree in my yard that I am going to take down and use as firewood for the evaporator. Is it any good? Also, I have some large branches that broke off in the Halloween snowstorm, I split it today and noticed toward the end that some of the twigs were green. Should I forgo the stuff from the storm and just use the dead tree? Or not use any of it and get some hard wood?
Burn it all! Mix it in for a hot fire.....an evaporator will eat anything. If its free..........I burned pine..hemlock..oak...birch maple poplar...it all burns
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I agree with Jim - Burn it. Hey! a catalpa always has a bunch of leathery looking seed pods - do those things burn? --I have a crazy mix of fuel too and it all burns. -----Mike--
I know catalpa doesn't have a very high btu rating and it may stink when burned but i agree with everyone else, if its free and easy to get to the sugar house burn it! a hot fire with a blower eats anything in its path...you may see a little change in the boiling rates using hardwood vs softwood but it all makes heat and heat makes syrup!
[QUOTE=...you may see a little change in the boiling rates using hardwood vs softwood but it all makes heat and heat makes syrup![/QUOTE] I am assuming that the boiling rate would be higher for hardwood? Or does softwood burn hotter than hardwood but just faster not lasting as long?
hardwood lasts longer...which you want for heating your house. for sugaring we have found that its better to fire more often with softwood and have a hotter fire, which in turn makes you more syrup faster, than having a longer lasting fire. Hardwood coals also last longer and if your getting low, dangerously low, on sap its not good to have a huge bed of hardwood coals sitting in the firebox. it make for some serious nail biting situations and some scrambling around!
With the wood that went down in October in the storm...Some still had green twings on the ends ,should I just leave that for next year or should it dry in the next month? although it had been down for a few months I only just split it recently. I do plan on using the dead tree this year though.