Wood question

[Motoman89]

Question for the masses here. After this springs ice storm we are over loaded with fallen California maple. How well would this burn? We are just a small operation making about 25 gals per year. I usually have some in our syrup wood pile but I don’t want to fill it with this stuff and then find out it has next to no heat and my evaporator won’t boiled hard. My plan is to split it very small. That or pile it in the field and burn it all when he cleans a fence line. TIA

[darkmachine]

Not sure about the california maple but I have burned sugar maple and red maple, as well as sycamore, and ash, also pine. If they are dry, they burn well and hot, but also burn up way faster and I have to watch my fireing time. The sweet spot is dry oak sticks from the straight line saw at my local sawmill. We run a 2x6 with forced air. I keep the firebox full and fire every 5 min just a few pieces on the top. With a small firebox I've found if it goes too long between fireing it dramatically effects my evaporation rate so I set a timer on my phone.

[BAP]

What is California Maple? If it’s a true maple then it should be a hardwood which will dry and burn.

[Super Sapper]

California Maple must be a local term. My guess would be boxelder which is called ash leaf or Manitoba maple in some areas. Boxelder, red, and silver maples are soft wood but burn real hot if dry but will need more frequent loading.

[maple flats]

Get a true name of the maple and we caqn then answer the question. If as guessed above, it's box elder, it will burn fine, but you will wish you had about 2x total volume total, or maybe I should say weight of wood.
Once dry all wood gives you the same BTU's per pound. If it's in fact Box Elder it will weigh a lot less than most other woods of the same size.
My guess is that it will be a lot lower density wood,, fast burning, very little coals (it will burn up fast.)
That being said, a ton of it will yield the same amount of heat as a ton of oak, it will just fill up the wood storage rack faster, and require more racks full to get your 25 gal of syrup boiled down.

[maple flats]

When I search "maple trees of California" I only find one, called a red sunset maple. I don't however think it's the red maple species. I wonder if it's a name for one of the Chinese maples. There are a few of them, each with a red leaf characteristic. Your California maple might be one of those. To judge burning characteristics, try some in a fire ring , once dried, See how it burns and how long it keeps throwing a good heat Then go from there to judge how much you will need . I believe it's going to be somewhat close to silver maple or maybe between silver and red maple, for burning as far as BTU's per cord.

[Bricklayer]

Do you have a blower on your arch ?
Dry wood is dry wood in my opinion. And all dry wood will burn. My usuall theory for our syrup wood is we just split the hardwood a little smaller and the soft wood a little bigger. And it all gets mixed up and stacked in the wood house together. Never had a problem. Whatever trees I have to clean up from the winter storms all go in the syrup pile. Cedar, pine , poplar , any type of maple , hardwood / softwood don’t matter. Just as long as it’s dry and I don’t have to pay for it.
I’m in Ontario as well and have never heard of a California maple. But it’s Probley one of the decorative red leafed ones. It will burn fine when dry. Don’t worry about it.

[maple flats]

Bricklayer, I have one exception to the statement "all dry wood burns". Years ago, I had a piece of Scotts Pine (or Scotch pine) that the splitter I had at the time (a basic TSC hydraulic splitter) would not split, so I sat it on top of my drying wood pile and said I'd let the arch split it. At the time I had a 3x8 arch with AUF/AOF, when the fire was roaring I threw that piece of pine it early in the boil. It was still left unburned as I finished the boil for the day, at least 5-6 hours later. I was fueling every 9 minutes. It surprised me for sure. I said to myself, it will burn up tomorrow! But the next day it again went thru another busy day boiling and was still on the grates at the end of day 2. I then pulled it out and threw out in the woods to rot. Had I not known better I'd have thought someone had thrown an asbestos piece in, but it was really that unsplit pine.
I have a sawmill, and often if I saw pine, I cut the sawed slabs into firewood length pieces and they burn up, it was just that the bark was protecting that chunk is my thought.

[Bricklayer]

Dave, I have seen the same thing happen. You end up burning more wood to try to burn that massive log that won’t catch fire. But I guess what I didn’t include in my response is to make sure it’s split at least. There is the odd one that just won’t split. I usually just chuck them in the bucket and dump them somewhere in the bush if they don’t split. But there usually isn’t a lot like that. Manitoba maple can be a real pain to split and hickory takes 2 seasons to dry properly. But all in all I think that you all know what I mean with wood.

[bigschuss]

I found exactly one reference for "California Maple" on a Google search. Sounds like it's another term for box elder maple. If it's dry, it will burn fine and hot. You're just going to have to fire the evaporator more often as it will burn more like a softwood.