Wood Connoisseur?

[Sinngetreu]

This is my first year really taking my wood seriously. Thanks to you guys, I am learning a lot about different woods and their BTU's.
Currently I am itching to clean up my Apple trees and Mulberry trees and this has me thinking; Does anyone collect different woods for reasons other than BTU's and rot resistance? How about different smells and things like that?

 

[Lumber-Jack]

This is my first year really taking my wood seriously. Thanks to you guys, I am learning a lot about different woods and their BTU's.
Currently I am itching to clean up my Apple trees and Mulberry trees and this has me thinking; Does anyone collect different woods for reasons other than BTU's and rot resistance? How about different smells and things like that?

I think everybody has there own favorite wood to burn, and that is not always dependent on the BTU content of the wood, although that can be an over riding factor. Rot resistance isn't usually a factor providing you take precautions to make sure your wood is covered and not sitting directly on the moist ground. There are some woods that smell better than others, either stacked, or while they are being burned. As a rule you shouldn't be smelling much of the wood as it's being burned, but every once in a while you might get a whiff, but of course some people like to use particular woods for smoking meat or BBQs, but that's not usually done in a heating wood stove. All that being said I prefer the smell of walnut wood as it's being burned, and dislike douglas fir. Pine I think is my favorite fresh wood smell, but once it's dried properly for burning it doesn't give off much smell unless you're in a room full of it.
But you ask the question "Does anyone collect different woods for reasons other than BTU's and rot resistance?", and in fact I like to collect Lodgepole pine, not for it's BTU or rot resistance qualities, or it's smell, but because the trees I get are dead standing, and the only source of wood that I know of that I can reliably get that is <20% moisture content in tree form. This means that I can burn the wood right away and don't have to season it for a few years first. Living on a small city sized lot with not a lot of room for storing wood this is very important to me. Much more important then getting wood with a little more BTU content. So that's my reason, I wouldn't say I'm a "connoisseur", I'm just being practical.

 

[adrpga498]

After "cleaning up" apple & mulberry I hate to inform you but you may be hard pressed to find better wood then you already have. I kinda like locust because its very prevalent in my area . Oh yes , I forgot to mention, FREE always wins out in my wood preference.

 

[Paulywalnut]

To me oak smells great when splitting and a few weeks in the stack. Most of the fruit woods smell good or I guess it's the smoke. Mulberry and locust are my favorite burning woods. Love the purple flame.

 

[BillLion]

To me oak smells great when splitting and a few weeks in the stack. Most of the fruit woods smell good or I guess it's the smoke. Mulberry and locust are my favorite burning woods. Love the purple flame.

I love the smell of freshly split apple, black locust and sugar maple. White oak is nice too, but pin oak -eh! One posted commented it smells like dog crap freshly split. He's right!

 

[Paulywalnut]

I love the smell of freshly split apple, black locust and sugar maple. White oak is nice too, but pin oak -eh! One posted commented it smells like dog crap freshly split. He's right!

I agree with the pin oak. Vinegar and lighter fluid mix. Love the red oak though.

 

[Sinngetreu]

Right now I burn Ash and a little Maple. But today, My wife drug me to a nature preserve for a little outing. While I was there, I talked to one of the DNR guys that informed me that they are cutting down all of the trees to restore the wildlife habitat to a state that it was in some time ago. They referred to the trees as an invasive plant. The guy told me that they have a lot of Ash and Oak and that I could get a cutting permit this winter for about a dollar a day and get all I want. SCORE!
I told them that I would be happy to help them.
After driving a remote car path through the preserve, I discovered that they have a lot of downed and dry Oak just waiting to be taken away as well as a lot of standing near the road.
Some times it pays to let your wife drag you to these things. LOL

 

[pen]

Only thing I ever do is keep the butt pieces of some cherry logs (or other nasty / tough pieces of cherry) separate for smoking meat purposes. I cut them down in about 1 to 1.5 inch cookies then hack them to bits for the propane smoker. For the smoker that we have at camp that only uses wood has the heat source and for smoke, it's whatever cherry is ugly / curled / doesn't stack well goes in.

Otherwise, with time to season, it's all stove fuel to me and with more than enough on hand, I never concern myself about what goes in the stove when, or what BTU content it has.

pen