Hickory: What can you tell me?

[NordicSplitter]

Next weekend Hickory will be on the list for me. Splitting about a 1/2 a cords worth. This will be my first time dealing with hickory. Tell me what I need too know. Seasoning time, how it burns, best time of the winter to use & so on.......

 

[lukem]

Hard to split, but not impossible. Average time for drying. Burns great...save it for the coldest months.

 

[MarkinNC]

I think of it as one of the top firewoods. Mine seems to be seasoning faster than white and red oak. It does not rot easily and you should save some of the branches to cut up if you have a charcoal grill or smoker (or have friends that do).

 

[Blue Vomit]

Next weekend Hickory will be on the list for me. Splitting about a 1/2 a cords worth. This will be my first time dealing with hickory. Tell me what I need too know. Seasoning time, how it burns, best time of the winter to use & so on.......

NordicSplitter,
The stuff is the devil. Not worth the time or energy to split it. Just throw it off to the side and PM me the address. I'll come up there and haul that nasty devil wood out of there for you. ;-P
Your welcome

 

[Duetech]

Premium firewood. Rated with hard maple, locust and white oak. Makes good coals. Can be difficult to split at times because it is a mildly stringy type of grain and the moisture contnet of the wood (stringyer when wet). Where wood heat is concerned it is well worth the effort. Probably one of those you wish you had more of.

 

[Wood Duck]

great firewood but mine is more prone to powder post beetle damage than oak. It isn't that the beetle larvae eat much wood, they just make a lot of mess. It doesn't matter to me because my stacks are far from the house, but if you stack on the porch it might be a pain.

 

[Corey]

It's a nice wood. Matters a bit on the species...shagbark is the tops (25 Mbtu/cord), but bitternut is up there too (23.7Mbtu/cord). It's probably the most btu people are likely to see unless they are blessed with hedge (30Mbtu/cord) or some other super dense species.

It's pretty much overdone, but I'd probably throw a few splits aside for the smoker. "Real" hickory smoke is just a little different than the imitations in most food, so there can be a subtle taste difference.

 

[CTYank]

And ... the fragrance downwind of your house is right up there with apple & cherry.

 

[Kenster]

I have a lot of pignut hickory on my property. I've never cut any down but have had a couple of storm downed trees in the past. I've found that if you don't split the rounds right away they become almost impossible to split by hand. I had half a dozen eight inch diameter rounds that, for some reason, did not get split when I did the rest of the tree. Three years later neither my ten pound maul nor my Fiskars Super Splitter would make even a dent in the wood. I just saved them for overnight burns on really cold nights. They were fantastic for that.

 

[jimbom]

Mine seems to dry twice as fast as the oak. Once dry, it's all she wrote.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Premium firewood! Yes, it does dry faster than oak for sure. A year is usually good for drying. Splitting sometimes can be a challenge.

 

[certified106]

You will love the Hickory and then become obsessed with finding more :cheese: ........ I burn alot of Hickory and it burns long and hot I usually save it for January and February. I can usually have my Hickory at 12% MC within a year of it being split and stacked.

 

[Kenster]

I was in the woods this evening with my granddaugthers. The oaks seem really stressed. The hicories seem nice and healthy despite weeks of 100 + temps and only a little over two inches of rain in the past four months (only seven for the whole year.) I've got a whole bunch of pignuts that are at least 60 feet tall. I can barely reach my arms around them. I won't ever cut them as long as they are standing and health.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Kenster, you must be about baked down there by now. Sure has been a long hot spell.

 

[Kenster]

BS, 107 yesterday. Weeks on end of 100 degree days. Last rain was June 23. Seven inches for the year. Everyone down here is praying for a strong, slow moving tropical event.

 

[smokinj]

Splits can sound like a shot gun going off at times. Makes me a little jumpy! ;-)

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Ken, a lot of our oaks are too beginning to look stressed. I also looked at the wild cherry trees and there is no fruit on them this year. The wild grapes have few grapes. I even noticed a couple sassafras trees where all the leaves were curling but this was in a fence row. The trees inside the woods seem to be okay.

 

[rwh442]

Great wood to burn if you catch it healthy or just dying. If they have been standing dead for over a year they start to get punky quick (shagbark in my experience). If they have a lot of those little insect holes (1/8" diameter) fire up the saw. Expect to sharpen you chain after one decent size hickory.