Follow up to Friday's threads. I went to the Wood Score Makes for a Cheerry Monday! score today to cut more of the wood. I was surprised the guy was there using the payloader on a Sunday. I talked to him for a bit and was telling him of the different woods. He tells me part of the lot was an old apple orchard. Mystree #1? Did i score honey locust? wasnt honey locust but my original thought...apple. Pile of splits from the two loads. Gave some to my friend. Kept a few nuggets/shorts if i decide to try my hand at smoking. Mystree #2? Did i score black walnut? is black walnut. RabbleRouser explained what to look for in the center pith and bingo...it was there. Learned something new yet again on FHC! Love this forum. There was a walnut stump cut off i grabbed today. Bark peeling off.
Nice id’ing, and nice Avatar. If you ever bbq on the grill, I like to throw a split or two in with the coals.. it adds a nice smokyness without being overwhelming. I want to cook up a batch of burgers like that and put them in a big batch of chili.. like trading some of the fat for flavor. Black walnut.. I wanted to get a stove load or four, at some point so I could dust our patio with the ash to keep the weeds down.
Gave them a good sniff Friday and nothing. Didnt think to give them a whiff today. There was only a couple small logs and ive never cut any so the thrill of something new and different. Not that common around here IME.
I dunno either??? Someone had replied with English walnut??? Have you ever bucked/felled a smaller walnut tree like i scrounged? Is the lighter sapwood consistently the same percentage regardless of tree diameter? Im just going off of what i was told? Maybe someday ill score some "normal" walnut.
The first pic is definitely apple (with a few pieces of cherry). I wouldn't consider black walnut a 'score' in any case, unless you have nothing better. It's kind of a lousy firewood.
I have not, but I have had several run-ins with BW and it's always looked like the pics I shared. We may never know which, but with that pic above and the center "ribbon", it does appear to be a species of walnut.
LoL....... that’s nice... I’ll take it... it smells good... splits easily... seasons quickly... it’s one of those woods kinda of like mulberry and silver maple that are excellent shoulder season woods...
And it burns a nice color (I’m told), so open fireplace folk like it. BUT mulberry is top shelf firewood in these parts. It’s excellent.
Jason that indeed is walnut that you have but not all walnut is that dark or at least that much dark. We've had some that was just a small dark center, but it was still walnut. The last of it we had I give to a neighbor to burn. He was happy as that was the only dry stuff he had (it was about 4 years in the stack).
Looks like younger BW Brad in this pic Takes a few years to develop the more brown like in The Wood Wolverine's pics.
My ol' olfactory works pretty good. Maybe this was the unscented variety of BW. Now i really wanna smell some!
I went over to my cousin's son's house Sunday and dropped a couple walnut trees that were in his yard. They looked just like what's in your truck and I'm sure they were BW cuz there were tons of walnuts with squirrel holes in them laying all around them. All the walnuts to clean up was one of the reasons he wanted them gone. They were also in the way of putting a fence up. I never thought to pull out my phone and get pix cuz I was focused on getting those trees down safely... They were close to his garage and him and his buddies were not comfortable in felling them. I ended up dropping those two walnuts and a couple dead Ash at the back of his lot. Then the neighbors showed up... one brought a splitter and a couple others had small saws. The had them cleaned up and split in a couple hours. One of his friends is keeping some of the crotches to slab for coffee tables. I ended up dropping a couple trees for neighbors too. One was a dieing Maple that was leaning over a swimming pool. We put the bull rope on that one with a come along and dropped it right where he wanted it. The two Walnuts were 20" DBH Not much straight wood in them. They were in the open and pretty limby. I Let the other guys cut them up cuz I saw a few signs of "yard tree" stuff in them... One Ash was 26" I cut him some Swedish candles out of that one from up in a section that wasn't punky. The last Ash was 18" mostly punky The Silver Maple slight leaner was 24" and was gonna get cut up for backyard fire pit use. I came home with 10 lbs. of venison, a free pressure washing for the house in in May, and one of them bringing over a backhoe loader to work on the ford in the creek. And I just went over for the fun of dropping some "challenging" trees. None of them were really scary to drop at all. Scoping it out, preping for the cut, and careful execution are the key to safety. Hinges and wedges aren't magic, but awesome tools when used properly. Did I mention... It was fun.
MAF143 It's always a good and satisfying feeling when you can get a tree to drop were you want it with a little planning.
Get some of that apple split up maybe more like “fingers” and you could possibly use it by mid summer if you’re able to keep it in a semi-covered bucket in a warm dry place. Try the stuff with the bark being at a skin-like state, it’ll cut down the chances of it being bitter smoke. I’m not sure if you remember that plum I brought home last year September. The bark is very pronounced, thick. So I intend to cut these down to smaller blocks then remove that bark and burn just the interior. I’m fortunate that this was standing dead so likely it won’t need to dry out for long before using. Very nice with everything for smoking but I found chicken and pork to be perfect meats to match it up with.
It might smell good when cutting, but is very acrid when burning in a pit! Makes my nose burn and eyes water.
