Top 10 hottest burning firewoods
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- Опубликовано: 25 июл 2024
- I mentioned a couple of the extension offices from which I used data, here are the main ones: forestry.usu.edu/forest-produ..., www.forestry.ok.gov/Websites/f...
If you want even more data like this, you can check-out these other sources as well: web.extension.illinois.edu/fi..., extension2.missouri.edu/g5450, extension.sdstate.edu/choosin...
"Free" wood is the wood that burns the best!
Lol - I can’t argue with that.
Unless of course you have multiple free options, then I suppose there would still be a “best” option.
Unless it’s wet and in winter lmao
😂
Yes sir!
Nice thorough list & well backed up with data. I have 6 of the 10 in my woodshed so I am pleased for the BTU's I will have when the cold of winter shows up. I keep the black locust and ash to mix with my lower btu wood (red maple, sycamore, poplar, persimmons). Thanks for your always informative videos...Merry Christmas to you and a happy New Year to you and yours!!
Merry Christmas Ricc! Thanks for the kind comment, and congrats on your well-stocked woodshed. Cheers!
Really appreciate you taking the time and effort to gather the data!
This guy needs more subscribers!! Great information
Thanks always for sharing good data with us.
Everyone loves Oak and Hickory. If you plant and oa tree it will be 25 years before you have something you can cut for firewood (and once, you cut it you have to replant). If you plant Black Locust you will have a tree that you can cut for firewood in 15 years, and it will send out shoots to start a new tree that you can cut in 8 to 10 years (this cycle can go on forever).
Incorrect. Oak trees can be coppiced and the stump and root system can be used for thousands of year and never go bad providing it's used properly after every fell.
Same thing with Aspen, though dry Aspen isn't very dense. Burn what you have.
Northern Italy, Locust is one of the most popular firewood for that reason. Grows fast, grows hard, burns hot. IMO the best firewood considering also it's very easy to grow.
Here , north Spain grows ash like crazy!
Easy to split, fast dry beautifull fire
My recipe on a cold winter night is getting a fire going with ash or oak then adding black locust for a warm cozy night. Love the stuff.
That sounds like a winning strategy to me!
You have pretty much covered the hot woods in my area but to the far west of Michigan I have hear of Madrone. I don't know what it looks like but in an outdoor boiler forum it was rated at 32 mill per cord. Finding btu charts one has to admit the variations go all over the place. Certain woods I have found vary just because of moisture retention. Red oak in my area is notorious for water retention. Wood that is cut to size but on the ground will have visible moisture (by coloration of the wood) compared to wood from the same log but kept above the ground and of course the weight is different with that off the ground being lighter. Thanks for the post!
Fine informative video. When I lived up in the backwoods of far northwest Wisconsin, near Spooner, I used to cut a great a mount of firewood for my cookstove. It was ALWAYS standing well dryed debarked wood, mostly already split, never a live tree! I had an abundance of that wonderful stuff!!! 4"-12"dia. X 12"-14" long! Don't have any idea of the btu's it burned at, but the best woods for the hottest, longest lasting coals were Red & White Oaks (the best of the best!) & Maple!!! The bed of gorgeous orangy redish coals would last for hours! Birch & Cherry were a special treat, especially the "snap, crackle, & pop" of the Birch!! I'd use Pine & Aspen (Popple) mostly for kindling. Those were the most wonderful days of my bachelor life (the loneliest too!)!!! 120 acres all to myself! Only neighbor was a mile away, & in the long winters, they'd go south, so I really had no nearby neighbors! I greatly greatly miss those days (i was in my late 30s then; I'm 82 now), especially those most wonderful glowing hot coals in my cookstove! Thank you LORD JESUS for my parents having the foresight to buy that property so long ago (1953)!!! "Ach du lieber, mein schatz"!!! "Gesundheit"! Pass da LUTEFISK poleaze!
That’s a cool story !
Compared to the others, I had to get a separate speaker to be able to hear what was being said. The title did catch my attention. Thanks for the info!
GREAT VIDEO! Thank you!
Thank you for all the info! Im curious where Red Elm wood fall in terms of BTU's. I burn that about 90% of the time because there are a lot of dead Red Elms where i live.
Elm is in the ballpark of 20 BTUs, which is pretty close to something like Sycamore.
I’m in Pennsylvania and I didn’t see a mention of cherry we have a ton of them they burn super hot and relatively fast so you don’t want to bank off at night with it
Great I have learned a lot!! Thanks
I agree with Osage Orange, which in my area is also known as Bois D'Arc (bow dark), Horse Apple, and Hedge Apple.
Another hot burning wood in this area is Mesquite, which I consider to be somewhere around Black Locust, but is not readily available.
Before I left California in '77' (now the Peoples Republic of Mexifornia) we would occasionally get some Madrone, which also burns insanely hot!
I was hoping someone would tell me where mesquite lies in this comparison. Thank you.
Mesquite- generally figures in at about 28. Hot!
Here in Australia we have red gum eucalyptus which has a BTU of around 34.5
Holy shit
What about iron bark, we used to use that mostly
Hi on this video what is the wood that is stacked behind you on top that is almost black in color ? It looks like great fire wood
There are many storm damaged apricot trees in my area. I know apricot is used for smoking, but is it an effective heating wood?
My absolute favorite fire wood thats plentiful in my yard is Locust wood which burns very hot and long on top of the fact I have a very effecient wood stove.. England 30NC or one of those models I can't tell exactly which model is mine because the same manual is for 3 different models listed.. I actually save most of my Locus for really cold nights because under normal typical winter conditions it can make the house too hot even with the damper on the lowest setting because it just burns that GOOD..
Yeah - Locust is really solid.
Shagbark is my favorite. The smell is amazing!
Avid fan of your channel man. Good to see you’re as OCD with your firewood as with your dividends! Thanks for everything 💴 📈
In the Pacific NW we use a lot of Douglas Fir, Pine, and Oak.
My favorite wood is almond, high in BTUs burns super hot for a long time great for stoves, not Smokey, and the smell if you bbq with it is incredible! Do to the almond orchards it is accessible in central California.
I had a feeling you were from CA. Almond is great firewood
Yes, I just bought some almond wood but we are having trouble getting it started. They are not split and maybe that is the problem. I am from Central California and there is a lot of almond wood in this area.
It would be interesting to know length of burn on trees too. I like oak and maple for campfire cooking. Well they are the main trees where i am. But beech is an excellent burning wood. Hickory or walnut too.
Thanks ndubstar I wanna know the burn length on firewoods aswell. I have a fire most days in winter in y back yard here in Brisbane Australia!
You guys must not have it out there, but Hop Hornbeam (Ironwood in Canada and the NE US) is in between Black Locust and Osage Orange……so it would be #2 on your list.
Hoping to hear birch,which is what people pay the most for here. Cheers from sunny Alberta!
You should look up some Kentucky coffee tree. It is rare in some areas but if you can find it it burns similar to Oak and looks a little bit like cherry or honey locust from the bark. Look it up and if you can find it I bet you’ll like it.
You know what, there were actually some Kentucky coffee trees a few minutes from my parents’ place, but I think they got cut down. I’ll have to check to see if there are any of them left there.
I've been considering building a wood gasifier and I was curious as to what the best option for fuel is. Osage Orange sounds like a perfect choice mostly because of its density, but I'm a little concerned about the gasifier melting parts of itself, considering there are going to be air jets blasting right into the burning wood.
Hey Dustin - Good Question. I’m afraid that one’s over my head. I’ve seen a homemade wood gasifier on RUclips, but I don’t know much about them, so I’m afraid I won’t be much help on that topic. I do know that Osage Orange burns intensely hot, so you could be right regarding the melting parts, but I’m really not sure.
Let me know if you find more info on that. I’d be curious to learn more.
@@burlybeaver6013 The way gasifiers work is through partial combustion in a (mostly) oxygen-free area, where the wood releases gas which you can use for fuel while the leftovers become ash and charcoal. The gasifier I'm looking to build is designed by Ben Peterson, who is world renowned for over a decades worth of designing and building gasifiers. He has a book detailing how to make one, if you'd like to learn more.
www.amazon.com/Wood-Gasifier-Builders-Bible-Homestead/dp/B086PRJNHG/ref=rtpb_5/147-2504473-2954743?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B086PRJNHG&pd_rd_r=0a1497aa-49c5-4fff-9f93-5343a872a488&pd_rd_w=ras5U&pd_rd_wg=5VsWH&pf_rd_p=1060fc32-cc06-48f1-987d-6b74a57cd8f2&pf_rd_r=56XA10TJ0AE4NZXGK587&psc=1&refRID=56XA10TJ0AE4NZXGK587
So…you just gonna leave off Eastern hophornbeam/ironwood?
I have some Catawba Indian bean trees, seems to be a hard wood, I don’t have a listing for how hot, but it burns nice. I have persimmon also but it’s softer.
I am on an old homestead that started with a log cabin a very long time ago, new house was built in 1883.
Hey Tim - wow, that homestead sounds very cool. I’d love to build a log cabin one day, just for the sport of it.
Catawba has about as much as maple in BTU
Lilac is also super hard and smells nice, but is far too small to cut for firewood. The effort required to cut just a face cord of Lilac would be the same as cutting a bush cord of any tree on your list. It is about 2300 Janka hardness and can smell like lilac flowers when it burns.
It has always been my understanding that wood is wood and all wood species have similar btu values. So, a pound of oak and a pound of elm, with the same moisture levels, will offer nearly the same btu output. There will be some differences in btu's due to saps/resins/oils, etc. But, in general, there is no reason to drive yourself crazy seeking out any particular species of firewood. You burn what you have. Obviously, as you walk through the forest looking for firewood, you will pick the denser woods. Denser wood means fewer trips to reload the stove. There are many areas in the world where they only have softwoods. Well, they season them real good and then have very nice firewood. Actually, those softwoods, with their oils, once seasoned down to twelve percent moisture, burn beautifully.
Outside of Osage Orange, Black Walnut is our families favorite 🔥🔥🔥
Folks I know in Kansas smoke with with Osage. Locally it’s known as hedge. It’s been some of the best BBQ I’ve ever had.
Locus no.1 hickory no.2 white oak and oak no.3 thats a fact. It maters if its dry if any tested is not the numbers are garbage. My list is spot on correct.
How about buckthorn? I’ve heard that burns really hot. Not saying it’s clean or desirable but just asking.
interesting... you see, here in the pac nw, we have doug fir, we have madrona, and nobody besides me seems to recognize its heating value but we have laurel here as well.
All I burn is osage orange, here in Kansas we call it hedge. Great for firewood and alot of other stuff. I know native Americans used it to make bows.
When we built our village house there were four 55-year-old poplars right on the borderline with the next property so they had to go. The wood lasted us three years but I hated it. You had to visit the furnace every twenty minutes because it burned so fast. The only good thing about it (apart from being free) was that it burned hot so in summer we could heat water for showers in half an hour. For me, alder and birch are great for the furnace, and apple for the fireplace. I tried to split some elm with an axe yesterday, but I don't want to talk about it!
Any info on Red Oak? I'm curious because I have been cutting and splitting on that fell out back. Just wondering if it is better than white oak.
Nice - that's my kind of question. I've got a spreadsheet with this type of stuff :)
When it comes to heat output, White Oak is a bit better than Red Oak. I've got some data written down from Utah State University and the Oklahoma Extension Service. The exact BTU numbers are different between the two, but they agree that White Oak burns a bit hotter.
I haven't done a comparison of this myself, but Red Oak might also be a little harder to split than White Oak.
Anyway, that's what I've got. Hope you find that helpful, or at least interesting. Cheers.
@@burlybeaver6013 Thanks for the info. I have some white oak and red oak and the red oak seemed to be a better heat producer while still having a pretty long burn. As far as splitting...I use a log splitter and unless there is a knot, the red oak doesn't seem to give any issues. Thanks for a great response.
Any chart that I saw had red oak rated slightly less BTUs than white oak. That being said there’s very little difference and it isn’t even noticable
White Oak is 2850 BTU’s and Red Oak is 2450 BTU’s
My experience has been that the white oak gives more heat, but by a slight margin. White oak tends to split a little less cleanly than the red oak. Red oak just pops right apart. The white can be a little more stringy, still straight grained, but stringy.
I’m not that familiar with trees, but I was about to comment hedge tree! Then of course I looked it up and found that was Osage Orange!😂
It would be nice to rate soft woods like various pines, firs, cedars, etc They are common heating fuels in many parts of the world... including here in northern California.
Wow ive always heard that folks would not use hedge because it burns to hot , could mess up your fire place or have your wood burning stove glowing red . First time hearing it considered fire wood . I also was told if your to split it your best bet to do it when its green for it dam near turns to stone when it dries , and that the reason farmers use to use it as fence post . Im curious also where does hackberry fall on this list ?
Hackberry is pretty low
First timer What would be better for my fire pit outside
If you’re just trying to have a nice campfire outside, then pine, Cherry, and cedar are a few of my favorites.
You forgot pinetree it's burn hot how much do you use to keep house in winter ❄️
So which wood meets the middle ground of BTU vs duration.
Sugar maple. All oak tree species. Yellow birch. Black birch. Honey and black locust.american beech. Rock elm. Black cherry, red maple, apple, pear, mulberry, service berry, hop hornbeam and hornbeam. All the hickories, Norway maple. White ash, green ash. Paper birch. Black maple.
Lol take your pick fine sir, but don't ever fell a tree and waste even a little bit ok, never ever no matter what fine sir
Osage orange, aka hedge burns hot enough to melt grates if you are not careful but it pops or sparks a lot as all yellow wood seems to. I would prefer black locust to hickory for 2 reasons... 1. easier to split, at least green but #2 explains why hickory must be split green and that is 2. hickory rots or becomes corky fast if not split and stacked soon after cutting, thereby becoming much less desirable. Black locust can lay on the ground 10 years and still be excellent firewood... But hickory smells much nicer.
What about cherry and the Bradford pear?
Southern Ohio they're called "hedge apples" extremely dense. An I can see why that tree would be #1
Larch or tamarack is a wood that could make the list but is a bit rare too.
There's lots of small trees and shrubs that make great firewood for personal burning but are too small or wonky to be commercially viable
An example would be silky dogwood. Smells amazing, burns hot, coals well, dries fast, you can cook with it. The only thing is the trees are small and grow sideways!
Buckthorn is a good example too!
Wow I never know that I don’t like burning it because it’s like there’s sparkle or’s in the middle of it constantly throw spark
Not found in Midwest but in intermountain western United States single leaf pinyon pine and mountain mahogany are also two types of wood with rather high BTU measurement most don't think of a pine species as being a long burning hot wood since it is a soft wood but pinyon pine would surprise you. It is often called the hard wood of soft woods for this reason. Not super high BTU but I believe some where around 27M or a little more BTUs. Mountain Mahogany burns at around 35M to 36M BTUs and to many pieces Mahogany or to large of a pieces of wood is thrown in to burn it can possibly get a iron wood stove red hot enough to cause it to actually melt and cause metal chimney to melt and cause a house fire so only burn small to medium sized wood pieces and only when able to be home and watch the fire. Not a good wood to throw on the fire and go to bed or throw on the fire and leave the house to go shopping or go to work or something.
In Nevada we used to have mosquite wood from the desert look at that 1
My experience shows that the hickory tree that grows in my area gives significant less heat compared to the oak .
The hickory is much harder btw.
Also if you touched the fruit trees, I would recommend you to check the plump trees, so of them are giving tremendous amount of heat.
Thanks! Plum trees? Interesting.
Osage Orange (hedge-apple) in my area has always been considered the hottest burning wood to the point of the "old timers" warning and sharing stories of people burning down their homes and literally destroying outside wood stoves due to over usage when feeding the fire. I have seen BTU charts online that claim iron hornbeam (iron wood) has a higher BTU than osage orange, but this wood is somewhat uncommon in my area from what ive heard and researched. Hedge, however, is very plentiful. As is black locust.
Ironwood is everywhere here in Wisconsin….. usually hits the top of charts on internet with oak and hickory
My three I have access to is sweet chestnut, hornbeam and black locust and they’re heat is noticeably different. Black locust burns much hotter than chestnut.
Almost makes an amazing carpenters mallet.
Black cherry or english oak im curious about
Why is the wood behind you so black ? Is that the curing process?
According to the Canadian Minestry of Natural Resources, Hickory is #1, Birch #2, Beech #3, Ironwoo & Northen Maple #4 hottest burning firewood.
MESQUITE IS HOTTEST IVE USED MESQUITE ALL MY LIFE AND OAK BURNS LONGER
Have you burned Hackberry logs?
What about sweet gum its everywhere here in east tx
Ya I hate sweet gum due to all the balls my lawn mower throws around lol
Your right we got them everywhere around here
@@ragnar9886 ya the balls are a pain but believe it or not I sell quite bit of gum for firewood and burn it myself love how it burns in my wood stove
I think you guys don't have crepe myrtle. I had one that needed to be removed because it was getting into a sewer drain. That is the easiest splitting, clean smelling low ash per heat firewood I've used. It crackles at first, then it just throws heat.
I found out because I googled "Crepe myrtle as firewood" and found a cajun recipe for smoked mullet over crepe myrtle. It smells good and they're a million in south east Texas that get chopped down all the time.
Hmm - that’s interesting. I’m not familiar with crepe myrtle, but sounds like quite the wood!
All wood gives the same heat per DRY pound, the difference is in how dry the wood is. And the weight per cord. Hickory, locust, and osage are heavy so a given volume will put out more heat. As for the hottest burning that would be a completely different classification than the most available btu per cord. It would involve a test using forced air or straight oxygen to see how hot the fire would burn.
That's really interesting, do oils in the tree contribute to the heat for example eucalyptus wood burns really hot.
you should make a fire with diffent woods and use a heat gun to see witch burns hotter please make a viedo
Hey Tim - that's a cool idea. After reading your comment I was thinking about how that experiment would work, but then I remembered something. Technically, all firewood has exactly the same heat output, when the weight of the wood, and the moisture content of the wood is equal.
I could imagine a test like this still being useful for directional information, but it wouldn't be a super conclusive experiment I think.
Anyway, just my thoughts, but it is an interesting idea. Let me know what you think of my ramblings :)
What about pinon burns around 29
Hedge Apple is a beautiful and very strong wood. I have an axe handle made out of it.
I live in Central valley (cali) we a burn alot of orchard wood pistachio, cherry , almond my favorite, grape.
Why is that wood behind you black like that? What type of wood is it?
What about hophornheam?
Hey Jim, thanks for the comment. I don't know a ton about hophornbeam, but after a quick search it looks like that's in the Birch family, so my guess would be the heat output would be on the low-to-mid side of the spectrum. Not a super precise answer, but I hope that helps :)
Eastern Hophornbeam would be the 3rd highest rated wood on that list
Hey , can you burn chinaberry tree wood in a fireplace?
Hi Kenneth - sorry, I’m not familiar with Chinaberry, so I’m not sure.
@@burlybeaver6013 10 4 appreciate that
My go to woods are based off of the prevalence in the area. My main wood is black walnut, with maple coming in a distant second, oak not far behind that and a little bit of locust, cherry and whatever ash is remaining thrown in. I’m not afraid to throw some spruce into the stack because they are everywhere too, softwood sap bleh bleh bleh creosote yeah yeah whatever that’s not true. I really wish poplar and willow hd some heat output cuz every single yard in my neighborhood has at least 20, they work for kindling but there is almost no heat output.
Would be interesting to do by region of North America
That’s an awesome idea - I’d actually love to do a video like that. Off the top of my head, I’m guessing the biggest challenge in putting that together, would be figuring out which trees are included for each region. In other words, do you only include a tree if it is common, if it’s native, or if it is able to grow at all in a given region. Any ideas for how to organize that? Cheers!
My favorite Firewood is Oak
All I got is pine, but it burns really hot in my pumicecrete rocket stove.
theres some live oak in my area and we cut one down in my yard and that shit burns hot. i looked it up its 36.6 million btus. I dont think its common firewood though
Ha! Left out all my favorite woods to burn. Port Orford Cedar, White Oak, Live Oak, Bradford pear, Madrone. And If I really want some heat... Manzanita chunks thrown in on top of a good bed of coals! Too much and you could melt your stove 😉
What about pine?
Hey Gabe - pine is usually on the lower end for heat output. For example, southern yellow pine is rated at about the 22 BTU mark, and there are other types of pine with lower heat output then that also. If you’re curious, you might enjoy browsing the comparison table of firewood on my website here: burlybeaver.com/firewood-best-to-worst/
Over here on the west side of the u.s. Yew wood(seasoned a few years)is the best. Followed by madrone.
Live oak here on Florida
Elm?
hardest to split anyway on the list for me
Grey elm burns the hottest from
Listening to all the old timers at the sawmill that burn wood to eat their homes still in 2024
You missed ironwood/hop Hornbeck very plentiful.
Idk what hornbeck is but ironwood isn't commercially viable, probably why it isn't on the list!
They are too small to sell but makes great wood for personal burning
@@AdaptiveApeHybrid Its all over. Everybody here calls it ironwood but I guess the technical name is Hophornbeam. I cut up 6 of them in Sept that had fell on their own behind my body shop. They never seem to get very big in diameter but it burns hot and burns long. Wood is really heavy and dense and takes quite a while to season and takes forever to rot. A couple of the trees I cut in Sept had laid on the ground for up to 5 years and still fine only punk was in the sapwood. Splitting it is like hickory its really stringy and forget about it if you don't have a splitter. Its in most the US from MN east all the way south to TX and up to Canada think it even grows in Mexico. Its all over around here nothing rare about it. Seems like they all get to about 30 feet tall or so and die at least the ones on my property and not many get very thick but there is enough of them that the wood adds up. Those 6 I cut after splitting was about one and a half face cords which really isn't much when i cut that many trees but its such good wood its worth it.
Ta ta ta today junior !
What about eucalyptus
Beech, locust and hornbeam. Seasoned.
mulberry is related to osage, which has the most BTU's per pound of wood. Locust is second and hickory is 3 rd.Mulberry will burn as hot as osage.
Osage around my area is not common and prized and sought wood for archers to make bows.
Also here in NC after hurricanes i go around with a trailer and a chainsaw and collect wood set by side of the road after cleanups
Ironwood ???
Hey Robert - Jon here. Yeah, I believe Ironwood burns pretty hot also. I think it would have made the list, but I was focused primarily on firewoods that are common in my area, and I also looked through some university extension data and I don’t think Ironwood showed up there either. But yes, I believe ironwood does have pretty high BTU output.
Red Oak?
Red oak is my favorite, if only for how it splits. It sounds like cracking porcelain when i split it, it burns great!
It's BEECH! Saves 7 mins of your life.
Eastern Hophornbeam, when you load the stove with this wood it will chase you right out of the house
I keep all my scrap and cut off hard woods from my wood working for the winter
Eucalyptus?
You are talking about the American firewood market. In Europe the hawthorn and the blackthorn are two of the hottest burners, just a bit hotter than elm and beech.
Yeah - that’s right, the different tree species are pretty regional. Sorry for any confusion.
What about Ironwood? It burns hotter than Hickory, is available here in NYS, and is considered a 'junk' wood for anything but firewood.
Mesquite?
Hey Gary - that’s an interesting one. We don’t really have mesquite in my area, and I don’t know too much about it. Do you know it’s typical BTU output? I’ve seen a couple of numbers quoted online but they seem to vary really widely.
Ironwood/hornbeam. Not even sure if it's on the scale
OAK Tree has the highest heat energy. This may be wrong western world but hold in Tropical world.... No tree can yield higher heat than Oak tree does. As you have mentioned... about varieties or species of oak which is true.
Eastern red cedar, juniper viginiana
Pine? I know it doesn't burn long but it burns hot
I’m surprised eucalyptus isn’t on your list.
Hey William - Jon here. Yeah, that’s a good call about Eucalyptus. I missed that one. When I put together the info for this video, I pulled the data together from several different university extension offices, but I don’t think Eucalyptus showed up in any of those datasets.