Is yellow birch always a #$%&* to split?

[pybyr]

As part of a barter arrangement, I recently got hold of some yellow birch, already cut to length, but not yet split, and I split it all.

From what I have read about BTU content, and simply the weight of the stuff, it should make great heat, but I don't think I've ever seen the woodsplitter work so hard; there was so much wild grain that it was sometimes more like shearing or ripping the wood, rather than splitting it.

(I've more often worked with maples, ash, beech, hophornbeam, and white birch)

Just curious whether this 'goes with the territory' of yellow birch, or whether I just got some from some particularly gnarled trees?

 

[LLigetfa]

I prefer to buy Ash but one year, Birch was all I could get. That was the year I broke down and bought a splitter. Ja, there can be some pretty gnarly Yellow Birch.

 

[JustWood]

Let it dry in the round for a year or better and then split it in zero weather. "Like butta" :cheese:

 

[SmokinPiney]

I prefer to buy Ash but one year, Birch was all I could get. That was the year I broke down and bought a splitter. Ja, there can be some pretty gnarly Yellow Birch.

I dunno bout the ash you prefer but the stuff i tried splittin yesterday was a pain in the ash! Im pretty sure it was green ash. Heavy as steel and tears apart like it's glued together.

 

[pybyr]

I prefer to buy Ash but one year, Birch was all I could get. That was the year I broke down and bought a splitter. Ja, there can be some pretty gnarly Yellow Birch.

I dunno bout the ash you prefer but the stuff i tried splittin yesterday was a pain in the ash! Im pretty sure it was green ash. Heavy as steel and tears apart like it's glued together.

White ash is about the easiest to split wood I've ever encountered; I don't know anything about green ash

 

[firefighterjake]

As part of a barter arrangement, I recently got hold of some yellow birch, already cut to length, but not yet split, and I split it all.

From what I have read about BTU content, and simply the weight of the stuff, it should make great heat, but I don't think I've ever seen the woodsplitter work so hard; there was so much wild grain that it was sometimes more like shearing or ripping the wood, rather than splitting it.

(I've more often worked with maples, ash, beech, hophornbeam, and white birch)

Just curious whether this 'goes with the territory' of yellow birch, or whether I just got some from some particularly gnarled trees?

My experience with yellow birch is that it is almost always very stringy . . . but I've never had any issues splitting it . . . at least no more so than any other wood species.