ol timers theory

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steeltowninwv

Minister of Fire
Nov 16, 2010
768
west virginia
ol timer told me the other day...there is sugar in all wood and thats what causes the bad creosote...he said u can have wet wood and still be ok if the sugar has left the wood......i dont know to buy in this or not..im skeptical.....anyone have any info on this?
 
Sounds like a lot of baloney to me.
 
Tell him two old timers say it is baloney. ;-)
 
How exactly would wood lose sugar? Nonsense.
 
One licks the sugar after splitting.
 
That is the reason they say to cut it in the winter. The sap full of sugar is down and the wood won't rot.
 
Only cut the skinny trees.
 
Your softer woods don't have sugar but actually saccharin which makes the wood lighter. Black walnut has brown sugar hence the dark wood.
 
I have some fire-killed spruce that died with the sap in the wood, and it snap-crackles-and-pops when it burns--feels like I'm throwing a string of firecrackers in the woodstove when I burn it sometimes. I guess that would be where the sugar in a tree would be, and it seems to burn just fine.

So, two oldtimers and a whippersnapper and jatoxico have no evidence to support this theory.
 
You have to be careful that your wood stove doesn't get diabeties. (ok I'll stop now)
 
Them firecrackers be termite turds exploding.
 
Make that three old timers.

Did he say how the sugar left the tree? How do you test to make sure it's gone... taste test? Sugar doesn't evaporate, that's how you make maple syrup. The water evaporates and the sugar stays in the evaporator pan.

That would be sad if it did, though, because wood sugars have lots of BTUs. And..... they make the wood taste yummy.
 
Various species of White Oak are highly prized for making staved barrels for aging bourbon whisky,wine,sherry & cognac (and years ago before steel & aluminum kegs,beer & ale also). The pores contain tyloses,which is a natural substance that makes the wood waterproof & thus able to hold liquids without leaking.

White Oak also prized for the flavors & natural sugars it imparts to certain spirits also,vanillin & others that really show up after extended periods when they react (in a good way) with red wines,sherry & cognac.

By law in the US all bourbon distilled here has to be aged in NEW charred white oak barrels,they only use them once,then are shipped empty to distilleries in Europe & elsewhere for aging sherry & cognac.Plus they turn up at garden centers occasionally sold as planters etc.Not as much anymore,for several years the overseas demand was so great all but a small fraction was shipped out of the US.
 
I have always, probably like most burners on the right coast, just cut dead pines. Two years ago I whacked a huge live pine to experiment. After two years on the stacks that stuff is as heavy as hardwood and burns beautifully. I credit it to the fact that the juice in that sucker hardened during seasoning. The ones before had lost that stuff.
 
Jack Straw said:
Your softer woods don't have sugar but actually saccharin which makes the wood lighter. Black walnut has brown sugar hence the dark wood.
And the yellow in hedge and black locust? Don't tell me, I don't want to know. I have heard a lot of old timers with advise I really didn't believe, but that is a new one.
 
Backwoods Savage said:
One licks the sugar after splitting.

Hickory has just about the sweetest, tastiest sap going. Problem is it doesn't run in the spring like maple sap does, so you can't really tap a hickory tree to make syrup. It does, however, leak out of the ends of the splits and hardens into crystals near the bark. When nobody is looking, I lick the ends to get the sugar. It's delicious.
 
Some say splitting vertically lets the sugar run right out the bottom of the split... ;-)
 
i thought it was bs..but ur alls replies makes for some good reading
 
fishingpol said:
Some say splitting vertically lets the sugar run right out the bottom of the split... ;-)

So that's what was on my right boot Tuesday afternoon.Glad I cleared that up,was getting concerned. ;-P
 
jatoxico said:
How exactly would wood lose sugar? Nonsense.

Not really that nonsensical.
Stack a lot of freshly c&s sugar maple in a closed shed. Stick your head in there in a few days, and you might think you're in a winery, with the alcohol being given off from fermenting sugars.
Some wood tissues under the bark, phloem IIRC, serve to transport nutrients generated by photosynthesis down to the roots for use/storage.
My conjecture for some time is that once such processes are done, drying of the wood can make real progress.
 
CTYank said:
jatoxico said:
How exactly would wood lose sugar? Nonsense.

Not really that nonsensical.
Stack a lot of freshly c&s sugar maple in a closed shed. Stick your head in there in a few days, and you might think you're in a winery, with the alcohol being given off from fermenting sugars.
Some wood tissues under the bark, phloem IIRC, serve to transport nutrients generated by photosynthesis down to the roots for use/storage.
My conjecture for some time is that once such processes are done, drying of the wood can make real progress.

So the sugars in wood are converted to simple alcohols through bacterial action and until that process is complete wood does not dry? Nonsense.
 
He is right about wood containing sugar, and sort of right if he is suggesting the sugar is associated with the moisture in the wood. Sap does contain sugar. The rest of it is pretty much nonsense. If it is hot enough for wood to burn, it is hot enough for sugar to burn.
 
Wood Duck said:
He is right about wood containing sugar, and sort of right if he is suggesting the sugar is associated with the moisture in the wood. Sap does contain sugar. The rest of it is pretty much nonsense. If it is hot enough for wood to burn, it is hot enough for sugar to burn.

No don't misunderstand, of course plants make and store sugar in the form of starch etc but those sugars are not going to evaporate. As far as burning, cellulose is a polysaccharide, lots of energy available there to be burned.
 
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