Or do you prefer certain species, and why? I have not harvested or burned much hickory at all. Seems I read beetles like certain hickory.
I like shagbark the best. Best for overnite and cold snaps. Have had mockernut over 5h2e year's but I didn't think it was anything special.
I am not even sure we have shagbark here; if I have ever seen one, it was a long time ago. I am thinking that anything I have seen like that it was a shaggy white oak.
Shagbark is a great wood for an overnight fire. It doesn’t tend to grow straight, it has a ton of little branches and it’s tough on chains.
I prefer bitternut hickory over shagbark hickory because bitternut is easier to split by hand and dries quicker, two years. Shagbark is heavier than bitternut and so contains more heat per cord. Red oak is our most plentiful firewood but takes a long... time to dry and so dense firewood which dries in two years is more valuable to me. Wood density and heat content per cord is not my primary concern. Shorter drying times and a medium or heavy density is my primary choice. Sugar maple is heavy and dries quicker than bitternut and so my favorite. Bitternut is my next favorite firewood given ironwood/hornbeam stems are so small. Ironwood/hornbeam actually has less moisture than white ash but is very dense and dries in two years. Bitternut rots before falling to the ground and so my supplies of bitternut are limited since all my cutting is downed wood. I am burning a mix of hackberry, white ash, slippery elm (red), and red oak with good results. I cut hackberry, white ash, and slippery elm (dead and bark free) before red oak and would cut bitternut before any of these choices. I do not know the bitternut hickory cousin name down south but bitternut is in the pecan branch of the hickory family. My tree book shows true wild pecan down south along with mockernut, shagbark, bitternut, pignut, black, and water hickory in Louisiana. The book shows sand hickory on the east side of the Mississippi.
Outside of Shagbark it’s near impossible to distinguish which one you’re cutting without nuts and leaves. I have some pignut in the lineup and a few limbs in the stove right now seasoned 5+ yrs and it burns long just takes forever to get going.
Once harvested beetle larvae do tend to separate the bark and sap wood- if you keep it covered things won’t turn into a fungus pile
I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a hickory tree. But if any of you guys have any hickory firewood you’d like to give away - I’m accepting donations!
Shagbark hickory is my favorite. High btu content, good for overnight, makes excellent coals and smells great. It does get those larvae looking things, I don't know whether they're beetles, some form of wasp or something else, but they sure make a powdery dusty mess. I also have burned pignut hickory. I will always take any hickory I can get.
I dont scrounge hickory that often but will grab it of course given the chance. It is tough to hand split in some cases. Ive found splitting it ASAP it goes easier. (i hand split) Frozen rounds pop easier in a deep freeze too. Pignut is my most common score. Shagbark is the toughest to split. I also get bitternut on occasion. Cant say ive ever seen any other varieties around here. Some shagbark pics To answer your question,ill take whatever hickory i can get provided its not all gnarly. (more or less the same for all the wood i take). Two good scores of it this year that i can recall.
Good question as to the hickory varieties... I don't have any answers.., but curious. I had a blow over Hickory tree this year, I think it's either mockernut or bitternut but not sure. I've burned my share of Shagbark but not too much of the others yet. It's in my stacks now and I thought it was a little heavier than my red oak so I'm expecting it to be excellent firewood. Here's a pic of some of it...there's a little red oak in the lower corners but mostly the Hickory...
