Secret Formula Firewood

[Wood Doctor]

You guys might hate this thread. I am completely stocked out of ash, oak, elm, locust, maple, and walnut. Everybody loves those and my demand doubled over last year. Even my hackberry is gone. So, I came up with a "secret" delivery formula by volume:
40% poplar and cottonwood
40% mulberry
20% any other hardwood I can find that is dry

I clear it with the buyer first so that they know exactly what to expect. The idea is simple: get the fire going with the lighter woods (poplar and cottonwood), then add the mulberry. All my mulberry is dry as a bone, so it burns very well and seems to not crackle that much. I've tried this combination in my own stove and it seems to be working. Nobody seems to be complaining. Anybody else tried this? Any comments or suggestions? TIA.

 

[Cody]

I've often thought about that as well, especially for those with fireplaces. Ash usually takes off no problem for a hardwood, but it'd still be nice to throw in a row or two of maple/cottonwood/basswood. We have some linden trees I've been cutting down for campfire wood and other than the smell it's not a bad wood. Mulberry is a hardwood so I'd look at your ratio as 4:6 in favor of the good stuff. It'll always depend on the customer. If I were purchasing for a woodstove that I kept going continuously I'd want more hardwood. If it were the weekend fireplace deal, what you're offering is perfect IMO.

 

[cumminstinkerer]

@Wood Doctor I love Mulberry, its great wood better than a lot of the stuff around here and dries faster than oak for sure, that combination would work great for me in my boiler. I am currently running a mix of soft maple, siberian elm, ash, hackberry, a little walnut, and a little mullberry. Really it is just however it come off the log piles it got split and up the elevator into the pile. cottonwood is actually pretty good just quick burning, not so great in a stove, same as the soft maple I am burning, but with my unique boiler set up it all works just fine.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

We have 3 main types of trees here. Burch, spruce and poplar.

I just sell like that. They might order 5 cords of birch and 1 cord of spruce, .25 spruce, .75 birch, etc, etc. All birch, all spruce, all poplar, etc.

Is "stocked out" a thing? I read that as stocked up till I realized it was out of stock.

Also cottonwood is a poplar.


My bundles I do poplar and birch mix, they sell well.

 

[panolo]

I have a mix of ash, silver maple, box elder, and elm rolling to start the season. The silver and the box elder are light and it burns well together. Get a little colder and I am going to sugar, elm, birch, and a tich of basswood. It's all mixed in my stacks. The only one I don't have mixed in is the oak. Takes longer to season.

 

[Cody]

Also cottonwood is a poplar.

An older fella here in town wanted me to cut down a tree in his front yard, I showed up and started calling it a cottonwood and his response was that it was a poplar tree. He's older than me so I wasn't going to argue, he's also not wrong it being a poplar. I better not start in the red elm/white elm debate.

 

[Wood Doctor]

We have 3 main types of trees here. Burch, spruce and poplar.

I just sell like that. They might order 5 cords of birch and 1 cord of spruce, .25 spruce, .75 birch, etc, etc. All birch, all spruce, all poplar, etc.

Is "stocked out" a thing? I read that as stocked up till I realized it was out of stock. Also cottonwood is a poplar.

My bundles I do poplar and birch mix, they sell well.

Stocked out means about the same as sold out. I stocked about 40 truckloads of split hardwoods in August and September and nearly all is gone. I have some dry rounds ready to be split, but the weather has been so bad that doing that is no fun at all. We had gobs of wet snow fall, and almost all remains as ice. Stacked up rounds even froze together like a single block. In 40 years I have never seen a fall with weather this lousy.

Most of the dry wood I am collecting now will be sold in January when customers call for their second delivery. I must be doing something right or else my price is too low. The manager of the company that sold me my truck thinks I am way underpriced at $140 a truckload.

 

[Wood Doctor]

An older fella here in town wanted me to cut down a tree in his front yard, I showed up and started calling it a cottonwood and his response was that it was a poplar tree. He's older than me so I wasn't going to argue, he's also not wrong it being a poplar. I better not start in the red elm/white elm debate.

To make matters worse, there is also a cottonless cottonwood that is a hybrid between poplar and cottonwood: a mule that cannot reproduce itself. It has large leaves, produces no seeds, grows big, and dies in about 30 years. Most poplar trees are shaped entirely different from cottonwoods and do not live much longer than 20 years. I cut down 19 of them at a company's request this past spring and saved all the stock over 2" dia. Today It burns like crazy.

 

[Cody]

Stocked out means about the same as sold out. I stocked about 40 truckloads of split hardwoods in August and September and nearly all is gone. I have some dry rounds ready to be split, but the weather has been so bad that doing that is no fun at all. We had gobs of wet snow fall, and almost all remains as ice. Stacked up rounds even froze together like a single block. In 40 years I have never seen a fall with weather this lousy.

Most of the dry wood I am collecting now will be sold in January when customers call for their second delivery. I must be doing something right or else my price is too low. The manager of the company that sold me my truck thinks I am way underpriced at $140 a truckload.

You're not wrong about the weather, but it's been the whole damn year for us it seems. Started with an awful spring, a weird summer, actually I think those two were switched. Then came harvest time, and wait, that was our third spring of the year, and yes snow and ice in layers. It's not over yet...

To make matters worse, there is also a cottonless cottonwood that is a hybrid between poplar and cottonwood: a mule that cannot reproduce itself. It has large leaves, produces no seeds, grows big, and dies in about 30 years. Most poplar trees are shaped entirely different from cottonwoods and do not live much longer than 20 years. I cut down 19 of them at a company's request this past spring and saved all the stock over 2" dia. Today It burns like crazy.

I'll have to look at it closer as it doesn't resemble a typical cottonwood tree, more like an eastern cottonwood as far as leaves an appearance but it's shape is more of a coniferous tree. Hmm...

 

[rancher2]

Wood Doctor
I am some what in your area. When I sold firewood back in the 80's,90's, and the early 2000's I sold a lot of cotton wood, ash mixed loads I sold around 100 cord a year back then and a lot of my customers had fireplaces some with inserts. A lot didn't want to deal with mulberry. A lot of them would just start a fire in the evening and would burn on the weekend when they were around. The farm ground I own didn't have oak on it. Some of the serious wood burners that bought 3 or 4 cord a year wanted a mulberry, locust, ash mix. I have one farm that has a lot of hedge on it and I had some big time burners that ran there stoves all the time and cut some of there own wood they would buy 2-4 cord of straight hedge and mix it in with the wood they cut. Today I just cut for myself for my Garn and cut around 10-15 cord that I burn a year and I only burn locust and hedge we have cleared most of the mulberry a long time ago. We logged the walnut out years ago.

 

[Wood Doctor]

Wood Doctor
I am some what in your area. When I sold firewood back in the 80's,90's, and the early 2000's I sold a lot of cotton wood, ash mixed loads I sold around 100 cord a year back then and a lot of my customers had fireplaces some with inserts. A lot didn't want to deal with mulberry. A lot of them would just start a fire in the evening and would burn on the weekend when they were around. The farm ground I own didn't have oak on it. Some of the serious wood burners that bought 3 or 4 cord a year wanted a mulberry, locust, ash mix. I have one farm that has a lot of hedge on it and I had some big time burners that ran there stoves all the time and cut some of there own wood they would buy 2-4 cord of straight hedge and mix it in with the wood they cut. Today I just cut for myself for my Garn and cut around 10-15 cord that I burn a year and I only burn locust and hedge we have cleared most of the mulberry a long time ago. We logged the walnut out years ago.

Last week I experimented with one of my steady customers. She was having a hard time burning ash and oak last year because she said it was tough to light the fire in her fireplace. Dense hardwoods do take some patience and lots of kindling. So, I delivered to her a mixture that contained a bunch of dry, split cottonwood and told her to light the fire with that and add the dense stuff later. No news is good news.

So, tomorrow I'll add another "secret" formula delivery to my list. The buyer understood and cannot wait to try it. Sometimes the simple ideas work the best. On the other hand, I have one customer that refuses to burn either cottonwood or mulberry (or American elm for that matter) in his Lopi fireplace insert. I think he's picky, stubborn, and a bit crazy, but that's his choice: to each his own.

 

[cumminstinkerer]

@Wood Doctor I sure wouldn't pass on any of the woods that guy does, but then I'm not picky, it all burns and makes heat, the exact same amount of heat per dry pound, just takes a bit more pieces of some to equal others. I burn what I have, this is the first year I havent had to go scrounge, I got hooked up with a couple of tree service guys, one has no where to go with logs that he cant chip so I get them all, I have at least two years worth right now if not more, its all mixed, just whatever they cut and haul out to me, but it all burns and is free less my labor and the little bit of fuel for the saws, splitter, and tractor running the elevator, ohh and the occasional beer shared with buddies that come help.

 

[Streblerm]

I like a nice mix of wood densities for my fires. I think the perfect fire from a cold stove is a piece of pine or poplar, a piece of maple or ash , and a piece of oak or locust. It starts easy, gets hot fast, and leaves coals for a long time. It can be tricky to get a fire started with a bunch of really dense stuff, even if it is good and dry.

 

[Trapper_Pete]

a lot of my maple has rotten centers this very light wood when dry , when it is wet it is like a sponge is my start up wood , when you really want to get something going in a hurry the lighter the faster it works very well.

it ends up fairly evenly dispersed in the pile when I am loading up bins to bring in the house as I find light wood I toss it in one bin then I have it.

only maybe one down side , I have a 18 gallon rubber maid tote of paper to burn up (stuff normal people would shred) and I have hardly made a dent in it in 2 months because I have enough coals in the morning to toss some light wood on and get right back to good flames.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

So, tomorrow I'll add another "secret" formula delivery to my list. The buyer understood and cannot wait to try it. Sometimes the simple ideas work the best. On the other hand, I have one customer that refuses to burn either cottonwood or mulberry (or American elm for that matter) in his Lopi fireplace insert. I think he's picky, stubborn, and a bit crazy, but that's his choice: to each his own.

I don't call it cottonwood, partly because for some odd reason most people have the idea that it's junk, won't burn, will burn your house down, roll over your truck, let your dog run away and steal your wife (ok.. maybe I made part of that up haha).
That and I can group together all the poplar trees like cottonwood and aspen.


By far birch is the biggest seller, I sell several hundred cords of birch and only around 50 cords of poplar and spruce combined.

 

[Wood Doctor]

I collected a truckload today of my "secret" formula. I included just about 40% dry cottonwood and poplar, most that I split. Some rounds split cleanly and other split like twisted grain stuff that you cuss at. I'm used to that.

The mulberry was dry and split very nicely except when I ran into snarly stuff. We have all experienced that. In all, I think this will be a very nice full truckload to a customer who intends to follow my directions on burning it -- poplar and cottonwood to get the fire going and crackling mulberry to top it off. She told me on the phone, "Edwin get some dry logs over here that burn. We need heat."

Sometimes the customer needs to meet the supplier half way and I will be delivering the best stock I have with whatever wood fuel remains at my site. You cannot burn the fire for them, nor can I control the weather. I split and stack it tomorrow. Her eighth-grade son said, "Mom, can I help Edwin unload and stack the firewood he brings here?" I think she might have said yes.

 

[Wood Doctor]

I delivered the firewood truckload, but guess what. The 8th-grade son's Dad and I did all the work. Somehow the boy went to visit a friend right before I got there. Mom and Dad were a bit embarrassed and he said, "That kid will do about anything to avoid work."

Anyway, they liked the "secret" formula and reported back that it works. Light the fire first with the cottonwood and poplar, then add the mulberry over the hot coals. Where there's a will there's a way.

 

[Northerner]

We have 3 main types of trees here. Burch, spruce and poplar.

I just sell like that. They might order 5 cords of birch and 1 cord of spruce, .25 spruce, .75 birch, etc, etc. All birch, all spruce, all poplar, etc.

Is "stocked out" a thing? I read that as stocked up till I realized it was out of stock.

Also cottonwood is a poplar.


My bundles I do poplar and birch mix, they sell well.

U must live in my zone. Except we have tamarack yet, which is what I burn now.

Cottonwood and poplar are related, but not the same, we have both. Poplar is definitely better for firewood.
It’s what most people burn out here in northern Alberta.


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[ChoppyChoppy]

U must live in my zone. Except we have tamarack yet, which is what I burn now.

Cottonwood and poplar are related, but not the same, we have both. Poplar is definitely better for firewood.
It’s what most people burn out here in northern Alberta.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Poplar isn't a specific tree, it's a genus.

Cottonwood is a poplar, as is Aspen,
https://www.britannica.com/plant/poplar

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

U must live in my zone. Except we have tamarack yet, which is what I burn now.

Cottonwood and poplar are related, but not the same, we have both. Poplar is definitely better for firewood.
It’s what most people burn out here in northern Alberta.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

AK. Have larch (aka Tamarack) in some small areas, but mostly it's been planted.