Dry wood is like the finest single malt whisky

[Kevin Dolan]

Having burned wet wood , and dry wood of less than 20% moisture I realised that my stove burning woes were totally related to my poor quality wood - moisture wise.
Being scottish it got me thinking of malt whisky and aging of the product. Whisky improves with age - to a point and cost quite a bit more ie 8 year old versus 15 or 20 year old. So wood needs to age to be perfect for burning and a good three year old ash and a four year old oak might be like a 12 year old glenlivet or a 18 year old macallan
God I wish I could drink my wood pile !
Don't you just love your wood pile ?

 

[mliiiwit]

I think wood alcohol is toxic, so no, I'm not interested in drinking it.

 

[BrotherBart]

Three year old Scotch and three year old wood are both fine with me.

For the record, my favorites are Oak and Glenfiddich.

 

[begreen]

A year old Ash is highly burnable with a slight vanilla nose.

 

[Kevin Dolan]

Three year old Scotch and three year old wood are both fine with me.

For the record, my favorites are Oak and Glenfiddich.

Love it oak and glenfiddich, wish you were a neighbour but must say 12 year old glenfiddich is better

 

[BrotherBart]

A young Scotch is a highly under appreciated thing.

Wood? What the hell?. If it burns, it burns. Enough Scotch and I can make any wood burn.

 

[Kevin Dolan]

A year old Ash is highly burnable with a slight vanilla nose.

Give me ash any time, as for the vanilla nose - maybe !!
Malt whisky and wood have a lot in common - age, maturity and the heat they both give .

 

[Sprinter]

Don't you just love your wood pile ?

Yeah, but not as much as you do. Cheers.

Or maybe I just need to change my beverage of choice...

 

[Denny Ziegler]

Having burned wet wood , and dry wood of less than 20% moisture I realised that my stove burning woes were totally related to my poor quality wood - moisture wise.
Being scottish it got me thinking of malt whisky and aging of the product. Whisky improves with age - to a point and cost quite a bit more ie 8 year old versus 15 or 20 year old. So wood needs to age to be perfect for burning and a good three year old ash and a four year old oak might be like a 12 year old glenlivet or a 18 year old macallan
God I wish I could drink my wood pile !
Don't you just love your wood pile ?

Speaking of dry wood how many woodshed do you have?The correct answer should be two, however most of us have one which is the finishing shed and stack freshly cut for one year single file on sleepers sometimes covered sometimes not. My wood receives the utmost care and protection, however aged wood has its limitations as too dry goes off like they said about the scotch whiskey that Kerwillie bought at 200 lbs a quart on Monarch of The Glen. I have hickory which is reserved for mixing with white oak that is seven years old . The hickory looks like Swiss cheese from all the borers that devour hickory if the bark is left on. Soft maple that last 5 years undercover is as light as balsa wood and burns like newspaper oh and one other thing handheld moisture meters are notoriously wrong. Many years ago Country Journal Magazine ran an article about the woodpile being just like a savings account, the moral of the story was when all electrical infrastructure fails for any length of time, each person that was living on self reliance would find out how well he had calculated his heating needs. Was he cutting his wood in the dead of winter when the trees sap was stored in the roots or buying summer cut tri-axle loads from the local logger, sap pouring from the log on the day of delivery?Trying to keep warm with wet wood when it really counted. As for me there are some very time honored traditions that some of us still live by. Oh and I would rather be warmed by wood than scotch. Denny Z.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Welcome to the forum Denny.

We do not have a wood shed but every fall we do put the wood we plan on burning inside the barn so that we don't have to dig it out of the snow. All our wood is dried outdoors in the wind. We do top cover it and we have no problem burning 3 year old wood nor do we have a problem burning 7 year old wood. Although the soft maple does get pretty dry I would never compare it to burning like newspaper. It should burn just fine. As for moisture meters, I've never owned one nor do I have plans on buying one because I know the wood we put in our stove is ready to burn; no need to check.

I too will chose wood over the Scotch.

 

[Waulie]

What just happened?

Anyway, the main difference between fine, aged scotch and fine, aged wood is I can make the latter myself which makes it very cheap. I do brew beer, but haven't thought of a stil. Hmmm.

 

[BrotherBart]

Somebody got way out of line. WAY out of line. And went to the end of the line.

 

[webbie]

Personally, I'm trying to learn to enjoy Brandy or something like it this winter....

I moved this poetry to the Wood Shed where it fits better...and closed it.