Got lucky and scored about 3 cords of soft maple to add to my hoard will it dry out too much by 2016/2017 season if I split it and stack it all now?
You're better off to split it, stack it and let it dry, than to let it sit in logs or rounds. Maple on the ground will start getting punky. Besides, doing it now only gives it one year to dry......should be enough for soft Maple, but the sooner you get it processed, the better. If you wait until next year, expecting to use it next year, you'll be disappointed..........I would be. I'm in a similar boat, except I don't even have my soft Maple for next year yet.
. Really, it won't ever get "too dry". Outdoor humidity won't let it get any drier than about 12-14% which is perfect. Isn't the PE Summit a pretty well regulated stove as for controlling the burn? You could also make your splits of faster hotter burnin' wood bigger & fatter to slow and lengthen the burn cycle too.
Soft maple is about the quickest drying wood we have around here. I have cut it in spring and burned it in fall with no problems whatsoever. A year is plenty to dry it. Another strange thing about this wood is that if you drop a tree and just leave it lay. In 2 years it will already show lots of punk but still burnable. Any longer and it may as well finish rotting in the woods. But get it off the ground and covered and you can keep it 20 years at least.
Great thanks guys. I think I have enough wood total to fill my 18 21 carport. Mix of oak, locust, elm, cherry, walnut, and a lot of maple now.
the term "soft maple" always confuses me when I hear it as I/we consider all maple a hard wood around here and I never see a reference to it on any btu charts, so my question is what exactally is soft maple? most chats list these maple species Maple, Big Leaf 2,890 17.9 Maple, Black 3,400 21.1 Maple, Red 3,230 20.0 Maple, Sugar 3,740 23.2 Maple, Silver 2,805 17.4
http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/differences-between-hard-maple-and-soft-maple/ The one thing I didn't read in this article is when the trees have their seeds. I believe Silver Maple go to seed in the Spring and Hard Maples do it in the Fall.
We have a lot of what I think is Red Maple, and compared to Sugar, it's fairly soft. Still a hardwood.
Generally think of red or silver maple and you have what we call soft maple. Here is a picture I took of a soft maple last spring. They flower just before the helicopters come on and the helicopters are what carries the seed. The trees grow quite fast. The wood dries super fast and it still gives a good fire and also leaves coals. To top that, it is one of the easiest splitting woods there are (red maple).
good article, answers all my questions on maple, I did not know box elder was a maple / we dont have them here. I now know that our big leaf maple is considered a soft maple. I really like burning this wood, even more than our higher btu Doug Fir. I just seem to get more of a complete burn with it and dont have all the black unburnt coals as I have with our soft woods like Doug Fir and Hemlock big leaf maple pic
Last winter was our first year burning and we had that wood provided by friends and family but I needed to get some wood that would be ready quick. I posted the question on FHC and backwoods recommended some silver maple.. And I was lucky enough to find some on cl almost right away.. A year ago this weekend I snagged and split that load of silver maple. It was already in the teens on the mm when I checked back in June so I'd imagine it's in the low teens now.. Probably the best load of wood I've ever snagged considering I need it this winter so the better btu stuff can dry some more.. Here it is in the stack. Gonna bring it up to the house within the next month..
Here's a random piece from the middle of the stack that was loose so I pulled it out. I'm gonna go grab the mm and a beer then I'll split it to see the reading.. This requires a beer..
yeah big fan of soft maple, what you call big leaf is what we call striped or whistle wood. Interesting to read correct definitions of maple. Vermont definition hard maple you tap for maple syrup soft maple you don't.. as you won't get top grade syrup softer maples make darker syrup have lower sugar content.
