Anyone burn this? Looks like it has the same BTU as oak, but it seems to dry much faster. Seems ideal to me. I have a bunch of it on my property. Wondering if I should be targeting this species for firewood. Local DCNR forester says it would be good to thin some of it out.
Black birch is primo wood. One of the very best. The only pitfall is that it will rot out real fast if it is moist. Standing dead will be half gone. If you cut it green and promptly split, stack and protect it from the rain and snow and you will be exceptionally pleased. And it smells great processing green too. Go for it!
I always try to respect the opinion of the experts. If the DNR guy thinks it is time to do a thinning, why not do it. It is BTUs and will burn so why not? It may not be the best you have but that just means slightly taller stacks of splits for each year. When I do a thinning I want to do a timber stand improvement, not just cut the best firewood. If I just cut the best firewood, what am I left with? Please think long term.
I have a few of them around, but they're mostly small or rather twisted up, not really of any value for lumber, if you're thinking about the long term plan. I have one stand that's dying - so I cut a couple out of there the first year I was in my house, and it was 1/2 to totally rotten. Smelled great though. I can't really compare how well it burns - this was before I met you guys and learned the value of dry wood.
I'm kind of excited. They grow really well around here. I have a couple CSS right now and seem to be drying really fast. I've got plenty around my property to keep me busy. I'll be burning the stuff that I CSS this Winter/Spring for the upcoming season. I'll burn anything I get this Summer, Fall, Winter for the 16-17 season, while I wait patiently for my oak to dry.
have never personally burned black birch, but white birch around here is primo wood for the country-clubbers. A guy I work with sells it for $100 a face cord during the summer and cant keep enough on hand. Smells great, burns great, splits nicely. Good call on the tendency to rot Paul, all the more reason to thin that stuff out for sure.
Paul Bunion is spot on with it rotting quickly, I lost some to rot because I didn't split each piece, since the bark holds in the moisture. My suggestion would would be to split as much as possible and stack it high and dry in a sunny area on your property. Great firewood though if dried properly!
I have a full cord or so split and stacked from some clearing we did at work last year that i cant wait to burn!
I'm good with this. Any black birch I take will be fresh cut and super easy to split and stack. Thanks for the input. It will be taken care of.
I process mostly Black Birch on my property. Like they said, it smells great, dries really fast, and heats very well. They can be a bit stringy when splitting green but not too bad. I just split about 2 cords of it this past weekend and still have 10 more trees to skid out.
Oh yeah! I'm filling out my "hit list." I've got several that are really easy to get to and were completely defoliated this year by the tent caterpillars. BTW, the wood makes very nice lumber. It's super strong and really heavy. I made a work bench from some I harvested years ago. It's super heavy, stable and tough.
I preffer it over oak, but it wont hold coals as long. I got some big ones here, bigger than this even.
I have two cords for the heart of winter this year. If I could get 10 cords of it I would, two of my favorite woods are black birch and beech, nice clean very little mess because of the bark, its great.
