Sugar Maple

Lots of people burn Sugar Maple, aka Hard Maple, and it is one of the better hardwoods in terms of BTUs per cord. I cut lots of Red Maple, and the sap is no problem, nothing like White Pine, for example. As a dense wood, i would think Sugar Maple would take a while to cure, perhaps more than 12 months??

There is a good time to cut sugar maple. I am not sure what that is but I am sure someone will chime in. You want to cut it before it starts producing sap.

The sap starts running in Feb - Mar here in the northeast. So the tree is full already, just cut and split it and when dry burn it. I have heard about better times of cutting trees, but for me the better time is when I have the time. It all dries out anyway. In my experience maple dries a lot quicker than oak.

The best time to cut trees is the same as for pruning fruit trees and that is when they are dormant. The means from November through February. Perhaps a little shorter period for further south.

That is the main reason we do all of our cutting in the winter months. That also is the time of year you don't have to worry about birds and animals nesting and is also a great time to be in the woods.

As for the hard maple, if they needed it cut now I would not hesitate to do it. Then split as soon as possible in your sunny breezy area and it might be ready next winter. Stack it loosely and if possible, single rows. That will give you the best chance of being able to burn some next winter. Good luck.

I burn a lot of sugar maple as that and red oak are the most prevelant woods in my area. Last year I noticed after stacking about 3 cord of sugar maple that the flies were swarming on the ends of my splits? Were they after the sap that was draining. I mean there was a ton of big black flies on the wood. As for seasoning...it dries faster than red oak and I burnt after 9 months of splitting. I think it could have used longer, but I needed it. This coming years wood will have been split for 2 full summers. I am sure that it will burn better than last years.

My experience is that unless you split it small, sugar maple would take ~ 1.5 years to season.

Most of what I burned this year was sugar maple.

c/s/s between june and august, was so so till about january. by feb we were burning stuff that was cut in august and it was okay, but not ideal.

cutting it in october and april had alot of sap, but its a really thin liquid, almost like water. if you cut it now, you will probably get sap.

Michael, yes, the sap will draw all sorts of insects, especially flies, for a bit but it doesn't last long.

Just cut and split a lot of sugar maple/hard/rock? It's good stuff to work with. This was cut in about feb. Took delivery of it in march. Looks like its drying very well.

I just scored some sugar maple blow-downs. One @ 17" at the butt, the other 34"+.
Not really any branches down low since these grew up in a dense lot of trees. Mostly nice and straight. Would've made some nice lumber.
I had to stop cutting off the big one 'cuz my 18" bar wouldn't reach the center. There's another 15' of stump lying there.
I've got some big rounds that I'm not sure how I'll get home and split. I guess I'll have to noodle them or split them in the woods.
The little Dolmar did great, btw. I had the bar buried for many cuts. I could bog it if I levered the dogs pretty hard but it did pretty well on a job that called for a much bigger saw.

Brian VT said:

I just scored some sugar maple blow-downs. One @ 17" at the butt, the other 34"+.
Not really any branches down low since these grew up in a dense lot of trees. Mostly nice and straight. Would've made some nice lumber.
I had to stop cutting off the big one 'cuz my 18" bar wouldn't reach the center. There's another 15' of stump lying there.
I've got some big rounds that I'm not sure how I'll get home and split. I guess I'll have to noodle them or split them in the woods.
The little Dolmar did great, btw. I had the bar buried for many cuts. I could bog it if I levered the dogs pretty hard but it did pretty well on a job that called for a much bigger saw.

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see most of the maple i cut has alot of branches. only come across the straight and clean ones in the middle of the woods, which arent really practical to get out of there.

Sixty bucks a gallon for maple syrup. New all time high this year.

CowboyAndy said:

only come across the straight and clean ones in the middle of the woods, which arent really practical to get out of there.

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Yah, I'm learning all about that. I went dumb when I saw those beautiful logs lying there. There's a 4wd road to them, and it's only @ 100 yds. from my Exploder, but it's down hill enough that I'm gonna have to use the farmer's tractor to pull my trailer up out of there. I sure hope I don't get that beast stuck down there. LOL

There is a trick to reducing sap in a tree if you have the time to wait a couple weeks. If a tree is budding when felled just let it set a couple of week and let the tree bud out and draw water from the tree. It will draw it faster than cutting and letting the sun draw it out. When the leaves start to wilt and dry you know that the wood is beginning to dry and you can cut it up then.

I just picked up about 2 cords of sugar maple that was cut one week ago. Amazing how easily it is to cut and split. I've cut lots of wood, and this is one of the easier to cut and split. The base of this tree was over four feet. I took all the limbs that were under two feet. It seems like it will be ready to burn come fall. It is all cut, split and stacked in my back yard for when I need it. I stack it so the west wind can hit it and in a sunny area. Good thing is I have about three cords that are 1.5 years seasoned already that will be burned first.

The splits are heavy. I am going to weigh some splits and write on it with a permenant marker the weight and see how much weight - moisture goes out over the summer.

sugar maple is fairly easy to split... just did 1 1/2 cords last night. big suckers too. the tricky part is getting 200lb rounds onto a horizontal splitter! My entire pile consists of 60% ash and 40% maple... it burns for a good amount of time and coals really nice. the only trouble i ran into them last year is that when it was really cold outside and we were reloading often, there would be ALOT of coals at reload time, building up quickly. all too often i had to take out 2-3 buckets of coals just to have enough room for an overnight burn.