Seriously Heavy Pine?

[WriteNoob]

I'm still working my way through the city lot full of pine that I've mentioned before. I'm into a part that's mostly white pine, ranging from 12 to 18 inches. I've come upon something I haven't, in my limited experience with conifers, seen before.

About half of the tree is what you'd expect from white pine; lite, soft, very full of water, and a general pain to split, with all the knots. The other half is seriously full of dry pitch, much heavier, drier, and if you hit it wrong or too hard, shatters into small jagged splinters, rather than splitting. I've put a pic below. It's not the best example, just the one I happened to be putting in the barrow when I thought to snap a photo. When I say that it shatters, that's not an exaggeration. The grain in these splits is also quite a bit narrower than the rest. It's also mostly in the rounds that are smaller, maybe 12" and under. Should've gotten a pic of one of the real dense ones, I guess, but they're really just like this one, with many more of the pitch filled growth rings.

I'm wondering if I need to treat this stuff differently in the stove, this winter. It really reminds me of a low grade version of fatwood. If it keeps up in this vein, it'll make up around fifteen to twenty percent of my wood supply, this winter. Will a non-cat (probably a Drolet Baltic) handle this stuff, with all it's pitch, without going nuclear on me?

*EDIT* Second pic shows a better example. All four splits are from the same small split.

Cheers, everyone!

 

[BrotherBart]

Good and dry it should be fine. This Fall torch three splits of this stuff and three of the other outside and see what happens.

 

[Woody Stover]

Yeah, if that's got a lot of pitch you'll have to see what it does. I haven't burned any Pine that was like that, just normal Red Pine. I've burned Fatwood though, and I don't know if a stove full of that would be good. If it's real volatile you could mix it with something else to tame it down, I guess.

 

[WriteNoob]

This stuff is heavy, hard (for pine), and seems inflexible. It comes in patches, sometimes in a whole round, sometimes one side of a round is normal, and the other is like this. It looks like the hard, sappy wood around knots, but it's in straight wood. It's not whole trees, but seems like areas of trees, with the rest being normal. The trees are planted in rows, plantation style, so they shouldn't have much wind stress, but maybe it's stressed areas? The trees are healthy, as far as I can tell. The difference is more noticeable than that of picking up a hem/fir 2x4, then picking up a southern yellow pine 2x4. The pitch is hard enough that it's tacky, but not sticky. I'm guessing this stuff is going to have some BTU's, with all that pitch. Not that big a thing. Just thought I'd ask, and learn that everyone but me knows about this stuff.

 

[owingsia]

I like to BBQ with real wood. I CSS pine (and many other woods) to cook on and I use it in the shoulder season.
I would recommend (if possible) to cut pine in the winter (Feb-Mar) because all the sap and gunk is not running through the tree.


As mentioned above, this burning season try to test a few splits outside because you do not want that stuff to go nuclear in your stove.... you for sure dont want a stove full of the stuff and then FFFWWWWWWOOOOOOOMMMMMM.......

I have tossed a few Douglas Fir splits that were full of sap into the BBQ pit just to watch them go nuclear.... I would dread that in my stove (Forget about what it would do to the chimney) that is one sure way to get a stove very hot instantly... probably way to hot way to fast if I might add.....

Burning pine is fine... I burn mostly pine and save the good stuff for winter. In this part of VA we have lots of gum, poplar, cherry, and pine. I like the pine and when I can score some free oak I go for it.

I do not like to have lots of room taken up waiting on wood for 3 years. I like to CSS Jan,Feb,Mar and be burning in Dec....

 

[Jags]

Are these dead trees? I have seen that happen in standing dead.

ETA - I had a few splits this year that literally had gobs of sap (dried) on them. I waited till I had an established stove temp before I chucked those in. I didn't like the idea of all that sap burning in a cold stove/stack. One word: thermonuclear.

 

[CombatChris]

How would that work with a stove which is supposed to really regulate it's own temp, like one of the Blaze King models? Will the temp spikes be as drastic?

 

[ArsenalDon]

I have tossed a few Douglas Fir splits that were full of sap into the BBQ pit just to watch them go nuclear.... I would dread that in my stove

Doug Fir is prized up here. I burn it 90% of the time and never have issues.

 

[Charlie2]

FYI-- Here is a split of yellow pine that I left over sized to see how long it would take to dry. Not quite half of a 12" diameter pine 16" long, this pine had beetles and the needles were browning, it was wet as it could be.( I have these little tests going on through out my wood piles.) But as you can see, it lost almost half it weight. I think this would be considered dry

 

[Charlie2]

Sorry I thought I had rotated it, I have the hardest time uploading pictures from my phone, that photo took about 45 minutes out of my life.

 

[Jags]

Fixed:

 

[Charlie2]

Thanks Jag! Dang that's a clear picture! Am I using too high of a resolution? The options were small, med , large and actual. I used large which was half actual. I don't know if this overloads the website or not.

 

[Jags]

Your original sideways post was at 263K, so not bad at all.