I wonder if the whiskey smell can happen on many different types of wood...just a specific type of decompesition going on...where it starts to ferment...
Really? I burn a lot of ash, and have a decent amount of HL from scores and that drop from the tree guy. IME it burns about as hot as shagbark. It's definitely a step up from ash. Yes, that does seem very dark for HL, but maybe there's a lot of some minerals that will make it darker?
Yeah it seems to be a dense heavy wood, but it takes more air to make it burn well...but then it doesn't last very long...end result is heat output not overly impressive. (yes its dry...4 years CSS, at a minimum) and these are the same results I have gotten in 3 different stoves (Drolet 1400i, Drolet Tundra furnace, Kuuma furnace) and I have heard others say the same of it too...
I burn a lot of HL and I agree that on the few times I've loaded just HL in the stove it is a touch finicky. I rarely ever burn a straight load of any one species though. I like to keep a mix in the basement wood racks and even on the coldest nights I usually have at least a couple different species in there together. Hop Hornbeam, ironwood, can be a little finicky at times for me as well.
I do the same now...only load a split or two at the most in any one load...I can tell when I get too much HL in a load...house gets cold! I agree...I like mixed species loads!
I never try to only burn one species at a time. Maybe that's why I don't see an issue with this? Although I have burned a bunch of ash only loads. That seems to work well.
This was split all of 60 seconds when I took the picture and was wet to the touch. Maybe if the exterior dried a little, the color would match up better?
