Got my first delivery of fruit wood from an orchard a ways south of me that was taken out for development. Sort of a shame there, but I'm really happy with the quality of the wood. For orchard trees, they did a great job culling the super gnarly stuff to sell for smoking, and left the (relatively) straight wood for me. This load is about half sweet cherry and half apple. I'm getting another load of the same size of all apple this coming Monday, then renting a splitter for the following weekend and having a splitting party. First, pics of the pile. They were planning to drop it up near the rack, but they arrived during a torrential rain storm and the driveway rapidly became too slick for them to back up a trailer loaded with fruit wood. Oh well, it's just training for ski season at this point. And my stacking work from last night. Got between 2/3 and 3/4 of a cord stacked. Sure is a lot more work than moving lodgepole rounds! Sorry the pictures aren't the best, I'll take some more once it's all stacked and I have better light.
Apple is some good stuff. I live in apple country. There's a guy a few miles from me, who's got a good 6-7 cords of it for sale. If I didn't have 14 acres of my own to manage, I'd probably scoop it all up. Love it for the smoker too.
Gonna have a great smelling fires next winter Apple & cherry great smoking wood too I'm guessing it was delivered free ? ? Lucky you!
Man, that stuff will smell great when you burn it. In PA where I live they claim apple is higher btu rated than red or white oak, locust etc.....
Not for free, unfortunately. There aren't a ton of wood burners in Utah, but there aren't many acres of wooded land either, so free wood is hard to come by. I paid $160 delivered for that load, which was advertised as 2 cords, and from my stacking so far looks like it will be right on or a little over 2 cords. Getting the next load delivered on Saturday afternoon. I have seen apple BTU's rated in the 25-27 million/cord range, and have heard that sweet cherry is closer to that than the ~20 million mark wild cherry varieties come in at. Regardless of the exact numbers, it's high quality wood at an affordable price, and I am looking forward to processing it. Really looking forward to making the neighborhood smell like a BBQ joint next winter.
Great wood for burning there. Is the picture doing tricks or do I see some birch in that last picture? If so, you need to get that split right away otherwise it rots from the inside out.
No birch, that's just the light reflecting off of some silver/grey cherry bark making it look like birch. All of the wood in these photos, plus the delivery coming Saturday will be split and stacked by the following Sunday evening. I dislike having stacks of rounds in the yard. Once it is split and off the ground, it only needs time before it's useful. Plus, all my neighbors are doing their splitting for this winter these days, so I'll fit right in, except I'll be getting ahead.
That's some really nice wood you have and at a great price too.. I'm digging that it's great BTU wood along with the BBQ smell is a home run. Not very often you come across a bunch of fruit wood to play with. Doesn't look like too much of it needs to be split either.... Send pics of the second apple load. I split some apple by hand years ago, and vowed never again...
I'll definitely post some pictures of the rest of it when it gets delivered. I am planning to split almost all of this, I don't really care for burning or seasoning rounds. My rule is that if it is wide enough to stand up on a block, it gets split. I do all of my splitting by hand, but will definitely be renting a splitter for the weekend to get through this. Also planning to park said splitter on top of a tarp to catch all these delicious fruit wood chips. It's particularly nice to come across a bunch of a wood like this here in Utah. The most abundant wood we have is lodgepole pine, which I like burning because it catches fast, seasons in no time and produces minimal ash, but is pretty modest BTU wise. The rest of my 15/16 stash will be lodgepole and subalpine fir, which should be perfect for mixing with slower to start apple. Buying a load of "mixed hardwood" out here usually nets you primarily Russian Olive, Cottonwood, Box Elder and if you're lucky Siberian Elm, so needless to say, I'm thrilled to have a big honking pile of this stuff.
It will smell heavenly downwind of you burning that. I didn't realize that apple had such high BTU; looks like a really decent load to round out the collection.
Apple is listed all over the place BTU wise, I've seen it as low as 22 million/cord and as high as 28 million/cord. The second delivery will be here between 2 and 3 this afternoon, excited to be able to unload this one on a sunny day instead of in the rain. I enjoy the firewood process, but own neither a truck or a chainsaw, so getting rounds delivered and doing the splitting/stacking is about as involved as I can get. For now. I might call it good on the fruit wood with this next delivery, although I'm going to see how much they have left. I'm pretty sure this load will be the last of their applewood that they say is straight/thick enough for firewood, but they do still have some sweet cherry left. I'll try to snap some pictures as well. They have a large flat bed trailer and deliver the wood in apple bins, tossed full an about 8-12 inches above the rim, 4 to a cord according to their numbers, and I feel that's very fair. Going to try to charm an apple bin off them when they're here too, one would be perfect for indoor wood storage for my cabin.
I recall when I was a young lad most everyone would say that apple wood is the very best of the best for burning. I don't think they were too far off.
