What to do with small branches

Mine gets stacked up by an outdoor firepit for summertime fires. When there's too much, I'll haul a load to the brush pile at the local transfer station.

I usually keep all limb wood down to one inch. I don't split anything 4 inches and under. I've found that the small pieces fir nicely in nooks and crannies when trying to load the stove as full as possible.

CincyBurner said:

Twigs make good grilling fuel. Sycamore, grape vine, fruitwood, and hickory have good aroma.
Dad would charge up an old burned out grill, stuffing it full of twigs & branches. With a big sycamore in our the yard, an endless supply of grill fuel.
Starts quick, coals quickly with enough direct heat for steaks and burgers. Throw in a few soaked chunks for transition to even, sustained heat.

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....then a breeze come over and covers your burgers in ash.
When I grill with wood, I use splits without bark and coal it down. Seems to help.

I figure a tree spent several years of its life growing . . . so why waste potential heat. I now cut and take wood down to about an inch in diameter . . . or is that circumference . . . well, suffice it to say it's to the point that a small dog would just be able to lift it.

I don't bother splitting anything that I can palm with my hands.

As mentioned, looks like you have some white pine there . . . great for kindling or early Fall and late Spring burning in the stove.

Here's a thread started last year. Burning small wood isn't that odd.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/free-heat-day.139070/

saskwoodburner said:

Here's a thread started last year. Burning small wood isn't that odd.

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Ha, I remember that thread. I have so much from from storms since then I had to come up w/ a system, hence the bags. Now that it's cut up and all the air space is out of it I must have at least a 1/2 cord.

In my opinion the guys that stop at 4-5" inches because it's "too much work to mess with the small stuff" forget to account for the fact that there is NO splitting for that small stuff. I back my truck up to the wood piles, anything that needs split get pull from the truck straight onto the splitter and then tossed on the ground for stacking when I'm done splitting. Anything 3-4" and smaller gets pulled straight from the truck and put directly on the stacks. Too much work? IMHO, it's too much work splitting wood, I like the stuff that doesn't need split.

Also, lets not forget about the loading of the truck: I can toss the small stuff into the truck from 20 feet away, the big stuff has to be carried to the truck and lifted in... that all takes more work and time...

I thought I was odd for keeping lots of the 1 inch stuff, at least when collecting on my own property.

However, I've not had good luck with not splitting the small stuff. I have some 3 year old maple of which the splits are very well dried and burn great, but a lot of the unsplit branches hiss and bubble from the ends when burned.

Maybe it's just that particular variety (green Japanese maple) doesn't wick to the ends well, but just in case, everything that went on my pile this year got split. Fortunately, up to about 3" it's a piece of cake to split or even just start a long crack in with a hatchet, so processing them goes fast.

iamlucky13 said:

but a lot of the unsplit branches hiss and bubble from the ends when burned.

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Even the small stuff needs time to dry for sure. Peeling a strip of bark helps a lot or giving them a whack with the poll to crack em' some is good too. All takes time though.

iamlucky13 said:

I thought I was odd for keeping lots of the 1 inch stuff, at least when collecting on my own property.

However, I've not had good luck with not splitting the small stuff. I have some 3 year old maple of which the splits are very well dried and burn great, but a lot of the unsplit branches hiss and bubble from the ends when burned.

Maybe it's just that particular variety (green Japanese maple) doesn't wick to the ends well, but just in case, everything that went on my pile this year got split. Fortunately, up to about 3" it's a piece of cake to split or even just start a long crack in with a hatchet, so processing them goes fast.

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It's true that the unsplit stuff doesn't dry as well but I rarely, if ever, have a full-load of unsplit stuff and if I do I put it on a bed of hot coals so I still get good combustion.

So far most of the splitting I have done on small wood has been basically shaving a bit off one side to let the main part of the round season properly. I don't worry much about what is mainly bark that came off the other side.

I agree with iamlucky. I've had the worst time with maple branches. Stuff about the size of a paper towel roll that just has bubbles pouring out the ends when I throw it on the fire. Full splits from the same tree are just fine.
I guess I'll have to get in the habit of nicking some bark off, but that's not far off from splitting it...

Countryboy does have a point - placed in with a load of dry splits, a few wet sticks don't significantly affect the overall burn.

I don't usually worry about it too much, but I have to remember not to use the unsplit sticks for startup. I also just cut up a small tree with multiple trunks that blew down on my property where probably half of the volume I collected was less than 3 inches diameter. It was a significant enough portion that I didn't want to have to pick and choose when to load it.

I finally found a use for all the limb deadfall that we get around here every time it storms.

I cut it up using my new handy Ridgid cordless recip/sawzall and throw it on the firepit wood pile. Cleans up my yard and gives me low quality but fairly low labor/effort wood for recreational burning, which is usually at least half of the wood I burn each year. I hate using quality seasoned oak, hickory, maple and walnut just to have a weenie roast!

EPS said:

What diameter is too small to split and stack?

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Everything in your photo I would call good heating wood.

For me, there is no diameter that is too small to save and stack. The really thin stuff (less than 0.5 inch (1 cm)) I just just use pruning shears and cut into kindling. Or just break over my knee. To me everything that can be burned is a potential heat source.

It is rather just a mater if deciding what is your personal effort cost/benefit ratio. Really tiny stuff may not be personally or economically worth processing and storing for winter heating. For all such things that exceed your cost ratio, just grind up in a mulcher or wood chipper and spread in your garden.

A lot of the nutrients sucked up from the soil end up in the new growth, ideally you want to return them back to the soil by letting the new growth rot. If you can, make brush piles in the woods. They make look huge the year you pile then up but if we have normal winter, the snow pack really squashes them down. As mentioned wildlife enjoy the cover. Rabbits cant seem to resist a brush pile.

Of course if you cut it small and put the ash back in the woods you are returning the nutrients but the bunnies don't get their hiding place.

I try to cut my wood down to 1" but on occasion 1.5" is the limit.