Hedgeapple Safe To Burn?

I have a partnership going where I help a friend with a days tree service labor and he gives me a trailer load of wood each time. We split a trailer load of wood for me on Sunday in exchange for me preparing 2 years tax returns for him. I got some Mulberry, white oak, and hedge I believe. What I believe is hedge is yellow in the middle and very stringy. Question 1, is that an accurate description of hedge for identification purposes and Question 2, is hedge too hot to burn in an insert?

I don't want to overfire, but the thought of hot fire on a cold night is appealing. If a small quantity is safe to burn, I could always mix the load with some lower BTU stuff. I suspect all of the wood I will be gathering this summer from him will be decent BTU since I have my pick of what jobs I help him on like an upcoming cherry tree. Some pics of the weekend score.

 

Seems that I've always thought a stove rated for Coal is needed for safe burning of Hedge. Makes sense because the energy density is prettymuch the same. I would imagine if used sparingly a non-coaler could use it.

 

The Hedge will be fine in your insert. Most guys that burn Hedge seem to mix it with other wood. An appliance stuffed full of the stuff can seem to overfire.

 

That and a sealed up stove should be able to control any fire. If it can't get air, it can't burn. Simple chemistry.

 

Yep, that's hedge. As Kevin said, mix it in with other wood, stay toasty.

 

This ^ ^ ^

 

You will melt your stove & burn your house down using that stuff…

The above is true if :
1.) Your stove isn’t sealed up tight: bad gasket , warped door.
2.) Your dampers don’t allow you to control air flow.

Just like the others have said.

Osage can be hard to start on cold starts.

I burn anywhere from 1/2 cord up to 1 cord of Osage a year. The only issues with loading my stove up Osage is that I have a pretty healthy pile of coals after a couple of days. The mixing in of other woods helps with this but I still have lots of coals.

Now if you really want to live on the razors edge mix some Pine & Osage together & start telling people
( un-informed ) what you are doing.

 

Pine and Osage together? At the same time? I believe someone suggested that to Oppenheimer once and he just said get out of here your’e crazy

 

I've burn MANY loads of 100% hedge loaded as full as possible so it can for sure be done.

Cellulose is cellulose....doesn't matter what kind of tree it comes from...and it all combusts at the same temperature. Hedge doesn't burn any hotter, it just has more cellulose per cubic foot so it burns longer. As long as you burn purely wood in your wood stove and regulate the air properly you'll be fine.

 

As long as you don’t have a crazy amount of air leaks in your system, you should have no problem controlling the burn with any wood type.

 

I burned a little Iowa-bred hedge a couple times, mixed loads of course. Once mixed with black locust! The stove is still sound and the house is still standing

 

My insert has good control. I am headed out to get another trailer load tomorrow of white oak and hedge. Glad to hear from the group that it's good to use. Once we split these rounds, time will tell what's next...hoping for a cherry tree

 

I used to burn a lot of hedge in a mild steel stove with no seals, just metal to metal. It warped the stove.

 

sorry to hear