What's Your Favorite Shoulder Season Wood?

Most of us being in the height of shoulder season and working mostly SS wood as of late got me to thinking what my favorite is?

Sassafras. Splits straight and easy. Love the smell when processing and the crackle when it burns. Just dont score enough of it.

How about it FHC, whats yours? You can pick one or two. Feel free to write yours in if it isnt listed.

The first six are the only ones ive scrounged. Any softwood gets turned into kindling or pit wood.

 

I really don’t have much choice. All I get around here is red oak, oak & hickory. Red oak it is.


Mike in Okla

 

Kinda like me. Its pot luck what my next score will be as most of it is scrounged.

 

Shoulder season is made for blocks chunks uglies etc. Burn it all up

 

Silver maple because 90% of what I scrounge is silver maple or oak. Since oak isn't really a shoulder season wood

 

I have a lot of silver maple from scrounges around here at the home. We are enjoying a nice fire right now.

Up north we have a lot of poplar and black ash on our land, and also burn the occasional balsam or spruce in the way for a new trail, or blowdown.

I have a bunch of poplar in the mud room rack ready for deer camp next week that was cut in early April, split small, stacked and covered. It was dry and did the job over our two long weekends up there for for our grouse hunting.

Here is some of the progress from this past April.

Poplar in front, sugar maple, black ash and a little paper birch behind.

 

I agree, lots of red oak shorts & uglies.


Mike in Okla

 

I’ll have some nice ash, paired with a citrusy Pinot Grigio…first frost to come this week, bring it! And the rut is on…

 

Cotton wood and chunks/uglies in the insert right now. I have a crap load of both that I need to get rid off before I burn anything else.

I’m jealous if you guys with nothing but oak!!

 

I like hackberry, ( don't have too much this year) or black cherry. Though I imagine some will say that may be a step higher than SS wood. Mixed with pine box elder, or TOH.

But I voted for burn any wood for SS.

Nice thread buZZsaw BRAD

 

Agree on the Sassafras. The natural oils in the wood make it an easy/quick start and the ambiance and smell are fantastic.

 

We have a ton of poplar here but this year have been burning a lot of basswood, burnt my stack of dry poplar already.

 

I picked Silver & Catalpa. I hit a job of about 20 cord of Catalpa a couple years ago & was really surprised how well it did. I'll burn anything but Cottonwood or Willow though.

 

Unless I have uglies and shorts, I pretty much burn whatever is next in the stack in the woodshed. It's mostly a mix of white birch, red and silver maple, ash, beech, and standing dead red oak (everything has been drying for 1-1/2 to two years). The beech and oak usually get saved for overnighters but everything else is fair game. I am starting to get a stash of spruce and hemlock splits for shoulder season however those won't be ready to burn for a year or two.

 

I burn anything in my stacks that's getting punky for shoulder season.

But my favorite shoulder season wood is by far is Aspen. It lights super easy. It burns hot, clean and fast. I love making a quick Aspen fire in the morning when it's cold. It heats the house very quickly. It doesn't pop at all. It doesn't spark at all. It leaves very little ash. Plus it cleans the glass on my stove to a perfect shine.

Then the stove is cool by noon when the sun is shining and the house is warm.

*Plus I have an unlimited amount of it here. I cut about 3 cords of Aspen on my property alone, every year.

 

One category that wasn't in the selections was , DRY.
DRY WOOD IS MY FAVORITE.
For any season.
So , with the choices of Birch, Aspen, balsom poplar, willow, white spruce and black spruce. And a chance of finding a small tamarack.
It's kindof a deal of , what's DRY.
Don't have my woodshed built yet. So standing dead spruce is really the only source of dry wood around here.

 

The ugly pile.

 

Pine, Aspen, Douglas Fir... Anything that's in my stacks.

 

Elm right now. Burning through some almost punky stuff that split pretty easy, and some stringy still solid elm that was from a huge elm in the cemetery next to my property.

 

Although I voted for "any" wood as shoulder wood, I'm really liking the quaking/bigtooth aspen I started burning last year. That stuff had me opening windows last season when I had the stove packed full of it. That's why it's the first wood on deck for me this year, when I start burning (which will most likely be this week)