I would say you are correct with the red or silver guess. They cross pollinate as well so it may be a mix. Both good wood to have in the stacks. I think red maple lasts a little longer in the stove.
And you will love it. Fast drying, fast lighting of the wood and it still gives good coaling. No, the fires do not last as long as with hard maple but it would be very difficult to turn down that wood. We burn lots of it around here. Only one word of warning is that once the tree is on the ground, it does not take too long for it to begin to turn punky. A year on the ground is okay but you'd best get it bucked and off the ground fast then. So we try to clean them up as soon as we drop one or if Mother Nature drops one.
Red maple is gonna play a big part of me getting on the 3 year plan. I have never burned any that was processed live so I'm hoping at least most of next year's wood is under 20% by fall. I may need a new moisture meter. The tree I processed yesterday was around 30%. That seems too low for a live tree
It'll be dry. Its probably a lot more than 30%. Doing it with a scale I've found fresh off the stump red maple to be 80-85% . Same when cut in December or July. It dries fast.
I think I heard MM aren't really too accurate when wood is 30 or above. To me, the red maple felt way drier than live oaks I've cut but that's just a guess on my part
Thats right, a moisture meter is an ohm meter and above 35% or so the wood is so saturated that the change in resistance is almost negligible.
For soft maple no MM is needed. If split and stacked it can be ready to burn in 6 months. 1 year is super!
There is a lot of red maple on the farm. Now that I know what it looks like I'm going to try and have quite a bit of it in my inventory since it seasons fast. I found one Saturday that was blown down with no bark. Hard as rock and burns really nice.
Ok - any guesses on what kind of maple these are? They grew about 100ft apart. Similar size at the base of the trunk, but different bark types.
Hmm.. I don't recall their leaves turning all that much red, as pictures show. Oh well.. their days of leaf making are long gone. CSS
