Some Free Ash & Shagbark Hickory

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ReggieT

ReggieT

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Scored this stack of 5 month old ash & 1 year old shagbark hickory...no jokes about my pile ok...my helper Bo-Hog is not the greatest stacker, but he works cheap, can shoot the wings off a dragon fly @ 50 feet and prays a whole lot! :laugh:
Man...does every bug love the bark off this hickory or what? The sheer number of critters under the bark was ridiculous!:msp_thumbdn::

Left all my axes and stuff at home, so I grabbed Daddy's old 12lb maul, put a edge on it and commenced to splitting...and what started as mere exercise, quickly became not too funny!

Whew...there was time about 3 or 4 fingers of "Makers Mark or Evans Williams" would have been real soothing...guess I'll just crash out like a baby grizzly minus the pain killer! :rock:

Later
Reggie

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That superfine borer dust sucks ballz in the house. Hickory is good wood but leaves tons of ash in the stove. And if you're splitting that stuff by hand, a pile is measured by how many beers it takes around here. LOL. ie, that pile was a 6 pack:laugh:
 
Hickory'll ease the pain, when you get to burn it. IMHO, all-around excellent fuel. And the fragrance downwind!
 
Hickory is great wood, but ya, tasty to bug critters. What I started doing is fell tree. Stop saw, grab axe. Knock off as much of the outside bark as possible in a reasonable time frame. Buck tree up (taking off those big bark pieces really helps with the cutting as well, gets rid of a lot of dirt), haul home., when splitting, I slab off as close to the bark as is practical, stack those flat shingle pieces elsewhere, then split the remaining of the now clean rounds as usual. Getting that bark off and only on thin wood, it dries fast and kills off the bugs soon, they need wet wood to munch it appears.

The hickory/bark shingles I slabbed off in january are now plenty dry enough to burn and show no signs of live bugs. I burned some the other day just to try it. The regular splits are still drying, but they are still pristine clean, and again, no signs of bugs, no holes or dust.

Put it this way..ever seen bugs eating a hickory handle, as long as it wasnt laying in the mud for months? They dont like dry wood.
 
Honey locust. You have to shovel the dust pile away to find the wood. Burns great though.
 
Strip the bark off some of it, get a nice hot coal bed burning and cook a few steaks over it while your enjoying a nice cold beer. I love to cook over that stuff!
 
trophyhunter said:
Strip the bark off some of it, get a nice hot coal bed burning and cook a few steaks over it while your enjoying a nice cold beer. I love to cook over that stuff!
Click to expand...
Hmm...I take that the "punky parts and the bark" set ablaze, are not too appetizing? :msp_rolleyes:
 
ReggieT said:
Hmm...I take that the "punky parts and the bark" set ablaze, are not too appetizing? :msp_rolleyes:
Click to expand...

No, and even if it's not punky you really don't want to cook with it and leave any bark on. You'll see plenty of BBQ restaurants with a supply of wood laying about to feed their cookers and smokers, the good ones order their wood with the bark peeled off and some of them just keep a splitting axe handy to do it after it's delivered. If they don't strip the bark, keep on driving...

I like to split the stuff down into small 2-3" thick wedges and then cut it about 5" long on the chop saw and burn it down into chunk charcoal.
Talk about delicious! Making your own charcoal and using it for indirect cooking heat for things like pork shoulder roasts and whole chickens is where it's at.

Just build a fire on one side of the grill and slow cook on the opposite, you get a nice smoke on the meat that commercial bag charcoal doesn't give you and the flavor is top shelf.
 
trophyhunter said:
No, and even if it's not punky you really don't want to cook with it and leave any bark on. You'll see plenty of BBQ restaurants with a supply of wood laying about to feed their cookers and smokers, the good ones order their wood with the bark peeled off and some of them just keep a splitting axe handy to do it after it's delivered. If they don't strip the bark, keep on driving...

I like to split the stuff down into small 2-3" thick wedges and then cut it about 5" long on the chop saw and burn it down into chunk charcoal.
Talk about delicious! Making your own charcoal and using it for indirect cooking heat for things like pork shoulder roasts and whole chickens is where it's at.

Just build a fire on one side of the grill and slow cook on the opposite, you get a nice smoke on the meat that commercial bag charcoal doesn't give you and the flavor is top shelf.
Click to expand...

Ok...appreciate it. My brother likes to mix hickory & pecan and just a touch of mesquite for his ribs, chicken and steaks...I've always been kinda partial to pecan/mesquite myself...although I know pecan is in the hickory family.
Guess, I'll do some experimenting on the grill!:msp_thumbsup:
Hey, I bet that bark or whats left of it should make some awesome kindling, huh?
 

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