Well this oughta be a breeze for some of you but I got my first decent oak haul ever, and although its got a little tint of red to it its no where near as vibrant as other red oak I've seen. Is it white oak??? Ive never been good with oaks if there's no leaves to be seen.
Looks like red oak of some sort based on the split. If it smells like whiskey its white oak. Congrats on your first score. Either way its great firewood. Just be sure to dry it for a couple years or more for optimal results.
first good oak score anyway. if i recall my one very small red oak score years ago had quite a pungent smell to it. This stuff smells sweeter. Either way it'll get seasoned 3 years before it goes into the stove.
I’ll agree the wood looks like red. I’m terrible at the tree ID game but I’m sitting here racking my brain trying to figure out where I’ve seen that bark before. Then it occurred to me I have one like that on my woodlot, dead, on the list to be cut down. Drove by it 100 times and just mentally ticked it off as another dead oak. Last fall I must’ve been driving slower,,,noticed the bark isn’t quite like all the other dead oaks including two the same size within spitting distance. Got off the atv, walked around it a couple times, determined it’s an oak of some sort. That’s all I got LOL Congrats on the score, whatever it is you’ll like it.
Lol, first time I smelled red oak from a skid/dunnage timber I had my nose doing some somersaults and I started checking the wood if I accidentally cut a trapped animal. core memory...
One log has the gray peeling scales of a White Oak, others have a similar bark pattern to Northern Red Oak. I agree with others that Red Oak is not always funky smelling. There’s many species of oak that I’m not familiar with, but they all make great firewood. Scored a little White myself today.
I had to google the obscure reference. Been awhile since I’ve watched GOT. I would attempt a backflip over a water moccasin filled moat for a Daenerys Targaryen score.
Are there oak hybrids like they do with maples so you get a mix of characteristics and there is no real way to tell?
Eric Wanderweg has some knowhow on this. I believe in nature certain oaks have "inbred" making hybrids. The wood from these is used to make banjos!
I have seen it on Maples I have about an 80 year old maple. The leaves on it are definitely red maple, the bark looks like a cross between Norway & Sugar. I believe inside is a sugar BECAUSE I tapped it and out of the tree the sugar content was 9% which is high for a sugar but unheard of for a red. As any sugar maker would tell you
Yes oaks readily hybridize within their respective families (red and white) It definitely confuses making a positive I.D. Red, black, scarlet, and pin can hybridize with each other. White, chestnut oak, post, swamp white etc can mingle together so to speak. I’m growing some acorns right now that came from a pin oak but on half of them, the leaves don’t have deep sinuses like the tree they came from. They’re probably hybridized with regular red oak. I’ve found a couple white/chestnut oak hybrids in the wild. On some parts of the bark, it looks like a regular white oak but further up the trunk it had large ridges like a chestnut oak. The leaves looked like a blend of the two parents.
