No its not the best, but I love the stuff . It dries fairly fast, splits easily enough, and smells good. IMO its great shoulder season wood.
It does look a lot like a scag/slash/red pine - but that stuff doesn't smell like a deep dark coffee...unless the Navy made coffee out of pine nuts(possibility) and you're used to that by now
Walnut does smell good working with it in the wood shop, you have to watch your feed rate because it will burn easy, as does cherry. Walnut is fairly light when dry. (Black Walnut End Grain 10 x) More info, http://www.wood-database.com/lumber-identification/hardwoods/black-walnut/ You can see why red oak dries slower Red Oak ( End Grain 10 x)
Well, I just broke into the stack of this Walnut, and moved some of it into my shed (which was empty, ready for a reload). This stuff is probably 1/2 the weight of when I split it last March. Yep. I'm amazed at how dry it is in only 10 months. I'll be burning some in a week or two when my porch rack is empty and I hoist some up from the shed.
Maybe I need to re-split mine and test it; It wanted to stall my cat (I've seen this with big Red Maple splits, and that stuff is DRY.) Walnut splits were kinda big too, but I thought after 20 years lying in the woods propped up off the ground, it would be pretty dry... I'm re-learning this stove after having replaced all the gaskets...maybe it just wants smaller splits.
