A Day @ the Beech

I like burning beech, It's a slick bark wood that does not make a big mess in the house, seems to hold alot of it's moisture, and take a while to season, but is one top prime wood to burn

You sure about beech? Sure looks like silver maple to me.

I 2nd the silver maple.

Ya, right away I said that is not beech simply because of the color of the wood. But nice going anyway. Nice work. You will be amazed at how light that wood will be once it has dried.

+4 Soft Maple

Yes, sorry to rain on your parade but it is Silver Maple like others have said, but it's still good stuff. It'll ignite easily and burn a little fast, but it burns clean and with a nice flame, and seasons very quickly. Beech has more of a rougher grain to it, not so smooth like the pictures. I could kinda see from the first picture where you would've thought it was Beech because of the smooth grey "Elephant skin" look to it but it's Silver Maple. Beech is around here but I don't seem to get much of it for some reason; guess not too many people want them taken down...

Rcrozier said:

Well...not really. Just a day splitting a small score of Beech. This was my first experince splitting Beech. Holy crap is green Beech heavy and wet. The two pics are just a sample of the score.

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RC, here is some beech I bucked up a few weeks back.


https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/76201/






GIBIR

This could be beech . . . at least a young beech. Any pics of the leaves . . . that would tell us for sure what it is.

Rcrozier said:

You guys sure about that?

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Yes. Very much so. And the number one factor is the color of the wood; not the bark.

It brings to mind one day a fellow and I were walking through our woods and he too thought that this young soft maple vs. the older soft maple were two different trees. Well, they were separate trees alright but even though the bark looks different, they are the same; one is young and the other is older.

Sometime you are in the woods, also look at a trees branches and higher up on the trees. Notice the difference in the bark between the upper and lower (on mature trees). I have considered taking some pictures of different trees that appear this way and then posting them. May be a winter project.

Yea check your splits in a month and they will almost be weightless :-( Would love to get some Beech myself.

100% soft maple

Rcrozier said:

You guys sure about that?

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Yup.

Yes, again the smooth grain of the wood indicates Maple; when you split Beech it isn't as "clean" a split like that-more jagged, rougher splitting.

Not that I am an expert . . . especially at IDing trees with only bark . . . but Iv'e split up a fair amount of young beech and get clean splits quite often. Again . . . a photo of the tree leafs would help offer nearly conclusive identification.

lukem said:

Rcrozier said:

You guys sure about that?

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Yup.

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double yup!

"MAD Horse"

Maple, Ash, Dogwood and Horse chestnut all have opposite branching - that is the branches will be across from each other (or a little limb scar where the branch fell off). Beech has alternate branching - the branches won't "line up."

Yeah there are a ton of silver maples in my neighborhood, the younger wood/branches looks very smooth, I have been frothing at the mouth to find some beech which is supposed to grow in my region but every time I think I found one it is a damn hackberry, which I have not burnt yet, may make a thread about it. But anyways the hackberry has the same bark but has the warts which can be confusing since apparently beech can get beech bark disease which sorta makes it look like hackberry and I think the leaves look somewhat similar. I also want to find a nice score of sugar maple as all I have burnt is soft maple up to now.