The best time to cut wood

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Riven

Bad Chin
Joined
Jan 29, 2009
Messages
3,584
Location
Central Nebraska
Something that a lot of people don't realize, and why I've started processing wood so early even with the bad weather is, this IS the best time to cut wood.

Many people have told me that their chins demolish the wood they get from me. I LOVE that!

I could call it a secret, but really it's public knowledge if you look.

The best time to cut wood for chins is while the trees are dormant for winter.

Why? Because when trees lose their leaves and prepare for cold weather, they go into a state that is called "hardening", they store up on basically sugars in their cells, along with extra water pockets all around the cells. The high sugar content requires higher freezing temps before it can freeze, this is to help prevent damage to the cells that make up the tree and help ward off freezing weather! The extra water in between the cells take most of the shock of the freeze without hurting the cells. Ever heard of or had a tree die after a late snow or frost? It's because it was getting ready for summer and used that stored up sugars to get to making leaves and the cells froze and died!

The stored up sugars in the cells cause the processed wood to have a better flavor, sweeter, than wood processed in the summer months.

Now the word is out, oh well. There are disadvantages to this though, the wood usually takes longer to bake because of the excess sugar and water stored.
 
I can hardly imagine myself walking in snow 6 feet deep (oh my, and winter's not over....) to get to the trees :confused2: Too bad I don't have these in my backyard, would make it much easier. THanks for the info Riven!
 
So if I have any of the trees listed on the "safe wood" list, I could go out and cut some off and clean and bake it myself? We have an apple tree, willow tree and a couple birch trees.
 
I just harvested a bunch of applewood and you can definitely tell the difference when you bake it. My chins love it!
 
**sigh** Living in Florida we don't have of the safe trees for wood that we can give our chinnies. :(
 
Interesting, I like to cut apple wood in early spring while the branches are budding because my girls love those buds the best!
 
I know that pruning trees is done when the trees are dormant to prevent damage to the tree, but I did not know that this would make for better wood for our chinnie friends to chew on. I have my own apple trees but they are on the small side and I can only take a little each year, and then have to look to other sources to resupply. But being this is optimum time to prune, and I haven't any snow on the ground, I shall go get my supply now.

Riven - how much longer do you need to bake the wood? At 200 or 250 degrees?
 
I don't time my wood, I usually do it at 225 until the inside of the wood begins to get little cracks, with this stuff being so wet I've been running it longer, it's been figuring about 2 batches a day, so probably about 4 hours +?
 
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