Shagbark Hickory

Split it a bit bigger than usual and season 2-3yrs, stuff coals awesome - great for overnight burns

Shagbark is one of the best woods you can get for cooking, smoking, and heating.....hands down.

It'll be two years or more til it will be promo for heat, but you can use it immediately for smoking or cooking. And the bark makes great syrup too!!

http://davescupboard.blogspot.com/2011/01/making-shagbark-hickory-syrup.html?m=1

dont mean to highjack but i got lots of mockernut on my property. how does that compare to other hickories?

I would wait 2 years. maybe 3 if the splits are good size.


JMO

Premium wood.
Great for burning, smoking, cookouts.
Makes great tool handles, beautiful lumber.
A Tough & flexible wood

Reckless said:

Also heard the nuts are great for eating/baking too.

Click to expand...

The nuts are very good on variety of baked goods - and I'm not a fan of nuts on baked goods.
They're a bit more difficult to get a decent amount of flesh out(not like walnuts/pecans) - shagbarks tend to be easier than others. A small amount goes a long way to making regular brownies taste awesome.

My buddies mother turned me on to using a cut nail to pick the flesh out -- crack a bunch with a hammer and sit out on the deck with a cold beer squirreling nuts away for winter

One of my favorites along with white oak, I treat it like oak and let it season 3 years, I usually stack it with my oak.

Scotty Overkill said:

Shagbark is one of the best woods you can get for cooking, smoking, and heating.....hands down. It'll be two years or more til it will be promo for heat, but you can use it immediately for smoking or cooking. And the bark makes great syrup too!!

Click to expand...

Thanks Scotty for the info! You know how much I like to smoke down here, Reckless, be glad I'm not close to you... I'd have one of those puppy's C,S,S, and ready for smoking before you could blink, beautiful tree's....

Reckless said:

Thanks for the insight Scotty! My friend has about 5 trees like this on his property (only cutting down one) so going to try this for sure. Also heard the nuts are great for eating/baking too.

Click to expand...

The nuts are great! Just a little hint though. Before you pick up a bunch of nuts, make sure you crack open at least 4 or 5 nuts. Is there any meat in the shell? If not, don't bother picking up any more. This little lesson has saved this family a bunch of work at times.

Second thing about the nuts is that they really need time to dry. We use onion bags to store them and hang them in the barn or shed. Make sure you hang them using a wire and not string. This will keep the mice away from the nuts. The nuts won't be ready to crack open until at least January and it won't do any harm to leave them hanging for a year. They will crack open easier and the meat will be easier to get out. If you can find some nut picks, they are great for hickory nuts.

Backwoods Savage said:

The nuts won't be ready to crack open until at least January

Click to expand...

That's not true Dennis, I cracked open in March

Coal Reaper said:

dont mean to highjack but i got lots of mockernut on my property. how does that compare to other hickories?

Click to expand...

The wood is pretty much equal in all properties,but the nuts are inferior to shagbark or shellbark hickories.Smaller size,thicker shell with more partitions,less kernel & quite a few are often empty,even in a good year.

Thistle said:

The wood is pretty much equal in all properties,but the nuts are inferior to shagbark or shellbark hickories.Smaller size,thicker shell with more partitions,less kernel & quite a few are often empty,even in a good year.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Unfortunatly all of mine seem healthy are none a really in the way of anything. Quite a few 20+ inches and most are cery straight and tall. I cut a small one a year and a half ago that i think i put in this years stash.

Excellent primo firewood ! Burns awesome ..seasoning time can be long ,like Oak but worth it

I plan to be sitting slightly uphill of a nice stand of shagbark about daybreak tomorrow. Tree rats for supper on thursday should be the result of my efforts.

Coal Reaper said:

dont mean to highjack but i got lots of mockernut on my property. how does that compare to other hickories?

Click to expand...

I read somewhere that one type of hickory has a superior smoking capacity over the others and I believe its mockernut. Because when I read that I was disappointed because mockernuts are the only hickory I dont have here in NY. Besides Pecan.
Difference in burn quality might be hair splitting.

Scotty Overkill said:

Shagbark is one of the best woods you can get for cooking, smoking, and heating.....hands down.

It'll be two years or more til it will be promo for heat, but you can use it immediately for smoking or cooking. And the bark makes great syrup too!!

http://davescupboard.blogspot.com/2011/01/making-shagbark-hickory-syrup.html?m=1

Click to expand...

That is a great link Scotty, if you are cutting hickory down, I wonder if you can harvest the inner bark as well?

Scotty Overkill said:

And the bark makes great syrup too!!

Click to expand...

Did not know that , I just cut up a shag bark a coupe months ago and have one out back dropping nuts right now

I better go check my stacks I had some I planned on burning after seasoning about 11/2 years.

Applesister said:

I read somewhere that one type of hickory has a superior smoking capacity over the others and I believe its mockernut. Because when I read that I was disappointed because mockernuts are the only hickory I dont have here in NY. Besides Pecan.
Difference in burn quality might be hair splitting.

Click to expand...

I do a lot of smoking, and you can smoke with "any" hickories, the mockernut's add a good robust flavor to most meat, especially foul. The others are a bit milder in my opinion, which is fine, depending on your taste. "Any fruit woods" are great if you decide to smoke.

Stephen in SoKY said:

I plan to be sitting slightly uphill of a nice stand of shagbark about daybreak tomorrow. Tree rats for supper on thursday should be the result of my efforts.

Click to expand...

Many don't know it, but those are some of the best tasting critters out there.

Some shag bark hickory I have found can be really stringy then others are not.

I suggest you mix it in with other wood as I have loaded full loads of hickory and the amount of coals is over whelming.
You then have to get the huge amount of coals burned down before you can load another new load of wood. As to get a nice load of wood in the stove
you need to rake your coals forward and just have enough coals in the front of the stove to get the new load of wood going. With all those coals I couldnt get very much wood in the stove.