My MO when working with green BL is to let the rounds sit uncovered until the bark slips right off. The bark does give off the majority of that pizzin on the campfire smell. I also remember hearing that the cambium can be harmful to wood chewing pups.
Before I was always ahead on my stacks I preferred bark on locust. In the old smoke dragon with semi seasoned wood the bark would really get the load choochin
I prefer to cut dead/down with the bark off already. With a couple storms from August 2020 a lot of them came down. I have several little honey holes of BL of such. Id just assume debark it and let mother nature clean it up before i harvest it. If i cut with tight bark ill process it that way. This experiment was unintentional as the rounds were harvested last March fresh cut green and i never got to them. I have a couple mounds of splits from last Winter of the same! They never got stacked. Do you get a lot of BL rotorburn? How common is it down your way?
Thanks Brad. I found the posts and all the good information JBSawman put out there as well. My concern was movement when drying and the answers were perfect.
I'm surprised that if the bark burns well and puts off good btus, and it comprises what can be a substantial part of the wood volume, that there seems to be such an effort to get rid of it and not use it (when it is still intact, or coming off right there at the processing area).
We have some, but not like it seems to be where you are. Every once in a while I'll see one, usually smaller (most i see are probably less than 8-10 inches) than what you typically show, and it's usually when I'm driving it'll catch my eye by the road. They seem to be in weird places here, like maybe where a homeplace was or some kind of previous disturbance. I wouldn't call them a regular species of the woods. I got that one down, dead barkless log the other month that I didn't know was BL when I went for it. So admittedly I have no experience burning BL bark. But it seems it must be pretty bad stuff to put forth the effort to not use it.
We have a fair amount on the family property so it’s always been a staple in my piles. As I understand it, farmers used to plant them around the barnyard and house because they supposedly attract lightning, protecting nearby buildings.
Holy cow thats a biggun. Hard for me to guess the biggest ive ever seen around here, but not even close to that.
Me too, bro. I love burning some nice thick slabs of Douglas Fir bark. I always stack it up and burn it in the Oslo during shoulder season. I get a weird satisfaction out of it.
Biggest one I cut was with farmer steve. Was 36" or a little better. I know they get bigger around here but I haven't seen one. Bark on that tree was thick enough you could load it in the stove like splits.
