Wood species that smell best when burned

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Rockey

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Dec 18, 2007
811
SW Ohio
The veneer comapny that I get my firewood from occassionaly has some exotic wood, some of which I have not identified yet although 90% is red oak with walnut being the second most common. The black walnut I burned today has a scent that is very appealing when burned. i cracked the door to let some of the scent spill into the room and I just can't get enough of it. Western redcedar on the other hand smells much better when green and freshly cut rather than burned, at least to me. Cherry also seams to smell better when green rather than when burnt. Any others out there that are close to walnut in appeal?
 
apple ,cherry,eucliptus are the ones i like the most.it seems like apple is a hot burning wood . and we have a local farmer that alows us to cut our own apple or cherry for 40 a cord.not a face cord either a full cord for 40 dollars. if i didnt have that connection i dont think heating with wood would be worth it . also black walnut has a bit of a smell
 
I use a big green egg smoker and have bought some professional "long burn" exotic lump charcoal from South America that smelled AWESOME. To top it off, I loaded up the smoker with about 1/2 bag of the stuff and got more that 30 hours of burn/smoke out of it. It was the best pulled pork I've ever made.
It was banned from import into the US almost immediately. I think it was old growth rainforest trees that had been unethically harvested. Good while it lasted....
 
Pinon. Wonderful. And high BTUs too. Does twice the work for same amount, easy to light, low ash, and beautful flames.

Mesquite and juniper also...


Rockey said:
The veneer comapny that I get my firewood from occassionaly has some exotic wood, some of which I have not identified yet although 90% is red oak with walnut being the second most common. The black walnut I burned today has a scent that is very appealing when burned. i cracked the door to let some of the scent spill into the room and I just can't get enough of it. Western redcedar on the other hand smells much better when green and freshly cut rather than burned, at least to me. Cherry also seams to smell better when green rather than when burnt. Any others out there that are close to walnut in appeal?
 
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In a wood burning EPA stove, it all smells basically the same to me. I burn Ash, Maple, Oak, Cherry... Since there is no smoke, there is not any noticable difference between them.

BTW in my infancy as a wood burner, I TRIED Cottenwood - it stunk to high heaven when I would open the door, the kind of smell that seems like it would be dangerous to breath.
 
Same experience w/ Cottonwood too. Dabbled in it until I, then my missus said outta here with that. Stunk like crazy.

I purposely yank a puff or two when burning pinon into the room when opening up the door. Sweetens up the place, and my missus really likes the scent.




derbygreg said:
In a wood burning EPA stove, it all smells basically the same to me. I burn Ash, Maple, Oak, Cherry... Since there is no smoke, there is not any noticable difference between them.

BTW in my infancy as a wood burner, I TRIED Cottenwood - it stunk to high heaven when I would open the door, the kind of smell that seems like it would be dangerous to breath.
 
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Your right, no nice wood smell from our cat stove stack, but with apple, hickory, oak or pine, a little whif in the house here or there is really nice. Discovered this when my 23 year old daughter kept opening the door to throw in pieces of paper.......... :snake: But realized we got just a whiff of smoke each time she did it. Mmmm, had apple in then.
 
Pinon is the sweetest smelling stuff around. But you won't smell anything from it coming out of my stacks... :)
 
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Hickory love the smell of hickory the only problem is it always make hungry for a good smoked pork butt
BTW a mix of hickory and apple in my smoker is just about the best thing i have found for pork
 
The best wood I have is Mesquite. Everytime I start a fire I get the urge to BBQ :lol:
 
Nothing can beat sassafras! Just cutting it gives the sweetest smell you could ever want. I have to cut some every now and then just to smell this stuff. You can also make a great sassafras tea from the root of this tree. One more thing is that it will make good fence posts that will last a good length of time without preservatives.
 
I've always thought that ash smoke has a nice vanilla smell.
 
Since I live out west I don't get to experience the same trees. I think the best smelling we have here is pitchy Douglas Fir, or Balsam Fir.
There's no Sassafras here, but I can imagine the smell as the root bark was formerly used to make root beer. It's been banned for years though, as the main constituent in the root bark essential oil, safrole, is a suspected carcinogen (I don't think this is a concern for burning).
 
PECAN Wood mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm so darn sweet!

Mixed with a bit of hickory on the smoker and For ged abod et!
 
derbygreg said:
In a wood burning EPA stove, it all smells basically the same to me. I burn Ash, Maple, Oak, Cherry... Since there is no smoke, there is not any noticable difference between them.
.

Yeah, it's funny because there are a couple family members with old smoke dragons and when you go to their house, you can tell they're burning - both outside and inside!

AS for me, so far I've burned willow, oak, apple, maple, walnut, ash, & locust. Hands down apple is the best and willow is the worst. It almost seems that how good a wood smells correlates to it's BTU output. Anyone else seem to notice that?
 
Hickory is the best I have noticed, except as crazy dan notes, it makes you hungry for BBQ. Have burned apple wood, too, and it isn't as good as the hickory, although I would put it second. Have burned a lot of willow wood and not noticed a bad smell, maybe it depends on the species. You only notice the smell when opening the stove door. Although since we noticed the hickory smell when burning I have noted that the hickory firewood itself smells great, too, before burning. Yes, I sometimes smell my firewood, does that make me weird? We didn't even know we had any hickory, but the smell makes it obvious. We will be burning walnut in the future, I will try to pay attention.
 
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I have no particular favorite but one wood that has a decent smell when burned that was not mentioned is eastern red cedar.

In choosing the worst smelling Ailanthus aka tree of heaven wins the award. It smells like burning a rubber tire.
 
I like apple and cherry then oak. We'd better be careful here or we're all going to have to go into rehab to kick wood smoke!
 
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