IMO apple is tbe best all around woid. It doesn't take a decade to season like oak. It's a good cookwood/ smokerwood. And its high on the btu chart
When God made the world he told the first wood hoarders that nice, straight grained apple wood could be found in every corner of the world, then he made the world round and laughed, and laughed.....
Ive only scrounged it once and it was mostly straight. Guess i was lucky. NOTE. Some cherry splits far left.
The tree I felled this spring went up about 3 feet from ground level then split off into several large limbs, then more limbs.... The vast majority of the tree was twisted limb wood. I had a few straight pieces to work with though. Not terrible to split fresh, but after several months of drying I had to split the remaining pieces with hydraulics. I love the look and smell of it fresh cut!
IME any round that dries too much on the end is a b$%^h to hand split. The main reason ive been splitting my scores so quick in the warm weather. I was told my tree was from an old orchard. Didnt know what it was at the time.
Someone say apple? I've processes tons, that first pic was 16 cord! You will love cooking with it. It's very forgiving with a nice sweet flavor. If you're going to use it primarily for meats, I like to almost totally cover it to slow down the drying process. I used to keep a couple 55 gallon plastic drums close when I was splitting and fill them with prime (heartwood) pieces, then cover to keep "wet".
I think there is an award for that much apple wood...the "you $uck" award......jk...that is really nice.
That was 2010 when I first started heating w/ wood. This area was touted as the apple capital of the world when I was a young’n. Knouse Foods sold permits to cut as much as you want for $1.
That was great then. We went down south month or so ago. Went by some peach orchards that were being cleaned up like those apple trees. Wish I could have stopped. They are replanting them with pecan trees.
