I like hickory and the wife requests I have a cord ready for really long cold spells. It does eat chains and throw Sparks. Oak is the king of the forest around here and it's cut for barrel staves at many Mills. You can clean up tops,bad logs, and buy butt ends all day long. Hickory you will have to work and hunt for. Several times a hickory tree has gone to be cut up into small pieces for smokers and BBQ restaurants. Demand is higher for hickory all year long for all the BBQ joints.
Well, this one time... I was helpin a fellow FHC friend with splitting and he had a small gum species (not sure which) already bucked. It was thee most miserable crap ever. We tried a round or two and gave up on it. So when I hear of someone calling any other wood besides elm and gum stringy, I
I’ve burned plenty of hickory but mostly mixed in with other wood. This year I have mainly hickory and so far this is what I’ve noticed. Splits easily with my hydraulic, somewhat stringy but that makes it for easy lighting. Burns hot and long. Currently I’m not burning very hot fires and maybe that contributes to the amount of ash, It leaves quite a bit. Very messy wood, this wood has been stacked for 2 years, the amount of dust from the bugs is mind blowing. Overall, I’ll cut as much as I can.
Dennis do you remember the property I showed you where I’m cutting all the ash ? That property is chuck full of shagbark . I’ve cut up some the last few years and as others have said hard on the chains . I don’t like how the bark tends to fly around when you first start making the cut . Split some last winter and my father in law insisted to be there when I was splitting it . Why ????? Come to find out , those old guys know a thing or two and he wanted some of “ best ice fishing bait around “. Lol I split and he dug out the borers .
There was someone that started a "favorite firewood" thread here a while back...Hickory was high on the list for many people...including me...there is some around here, but I don't seem to get it very often
I have 5 bitter hickory trees right out by the house and woodshed that started dying from the top down a this summer ago. I'm gonna have to drop them one of these days. I hate losing trees so close to the house. We built in a woods, I don't really want much yard.
[QUOTE="brenndatomu, post: 1028974, member: 2607" but I don't seem to get it very often That's what she said....
Some trees worse than others with the hickory but nothing as bad as the black gum that we cut over at bear 1998 place last winter. I just picked up some wood from a guy that had some elm in it and I though oh crap but it wasn't to bad to split.
You might have bitternut hickory as well as pignut hickory. They have the golden leaves, makes great smoking and heating wood.
A little research... probably have these in my locale (and perhaps more)... pignut hickory bitternut hickory mockernut hickory shagbark hickory When I was a kid, somehow I'd get hickory nuts to eat from other kids. I wonder what species it is you eat; I am thinking shagbark. One of the hickory nuts is real hard to get into it and it's small, thinking it's one or all of the other three above that is not shagbark hickory. Interesting... an article says mockernut hickory is the most prevalent species in eastern USA. Also wonder why hickory is so hard on chains. Is it the shagbark that is and why, does it just catch more sand?
I missed that thread but mine would be elm . That standing dead stuff with no bark on it . As far as processing goes it’s the cats butt! No splitting required , very clean , and no seasoning required .
Might have been pignut you were eating too. I think those have bigger nuts compared to the shagbark I've seen. basod knows a good bit about the different hickories. Seems the bark on all the hickories are tough on chains, especially if it dries a bit, gets really hard.
I have often wondered... there is no way that wood, alone, would throw a spark from a chain, is it? Would it not always be a grain of sand?
Shagbark nuts are the only kind we ever ate. We always thought bitter and pignut were the same thing and the hull is thin compared to the shagbark nut hull. We always had onion bags full of shagbark nuts hanging in the basement when I was a kid. We had a stool, concrete block, and a hammer by the furnace to crack hickory nuts and black walnuts. Mom would tell me to go down and crack two cups, she was gonna make a pie. I'm sure I ended up cracking twice that many cuz I'd eat as many or more that got put in the measuring cup. She made the pies just like a pecan pie and they were delicious. My dad's 7 acres was mostly shagbark hickory trees and beech. There were tons of squirrels there.
I had some winged elm, the bark looked like it was some young pine but inside didn’t smell like it at all. Definitely hard to split. It wasn’t stringy but had some pieces where it looked like wood wasn’t really splitting but it would chunk out. Best Way I can describe it because I had heck of a time splitting it and it hardly dried out. At some point i went, this is just garbage wood. Throwing it in the pit was the best idea since I had no patience with it.
