Yellow Birch for firewood

[cutterboy]

I have not burned much yellow birch, there is not much of it on the farm. Next year I'll be burning a good amount. I had a yb tree that was never going to produce a saw log so I made it firewood.


 

 
About a week after the above pictures were taken I came back and cut it down and cut it up.


 
I got maybe 1/4-1/3 of a cord and it will all be burned in my basement stove. According to a chart I googled up, yellow birch produces the same amount of BTU's as ash which is just slightly less than red oak. I have it all split and stacked in the barn but I can tell you, it doesn't split very easily.

   Happy cutting.....Cutter

[thecfarm]

I was going to tell you about the hard splitting part, kinda like beech. 

[mudfarmer]

Yes sir I burn a good bit of it and like it a lot, the splitting not so much but at least it isn't elm  ??? It will maybe rot sort of fast like red maple or gray birch if you don't deal with it quick enough but doesn't seem like something you need to worry about!

[barbender]

It doesn't rot nearly as quickly as white birch. We have tons of white birch up here, but yellow birch isn't nearly as common. I had a few logs I'd save to saw, but as they dried a bit I saw they had ring shake so I never sawed them. They probably sat there for 4 years before I ran them through the processor, and I was surprised that it was still completely solid. White birch would've been mush by then.

[Greenie]

Smells great when it burns. We used to tow a travel trailer from Maine to Sinaloa Mexico and camp on the beach along the Pacific Ocean. I'd bring some yellow birch for campfires - the smoke smelled magical compared to the coconut tree wood and other local species which all were acrid and nasty. It splits easily unless there's disease or some other issue with the grain. Like white birch the bark prevents the wood from drying properly so it needs to be split sooner rather than later. It's my perception that there's more heat content than white birch.
We have a hutch constructed from yellow birch - it came out very nice and looks attractive.

[Lebel Logging]

Around here yellow birch is one of the best firewood you can get, I would says its near sugar maple. The smell of it is amazing but the splitting can be a nightmare ! :D The piece near a crotch will find the limit of your log splitter quite easily. When we were heating with firewood we burned a lot of it and sometime we needed to split it with a chainsaw. The log splitter wont split, an axe wont split it and even a sledge hammer with a wedge wont split it sometimes but it will keep you warm !

[thecfarm]

We had 4 wood splitters, Guy, Mike, Paul and Ray.  :D
But saying that we could move some wood. 

[SwampDonkey]

Love yellow birch firewood. You carry a dry piece of yellow birch compared to dry white birch, and it's quite a bit heavier. Even grey birch seems heavier than white birch and it's just a weed. Like was mentioned it's twisty stuff to split, that's usually because we are splitting the junk trees. Straight grained yellow birch isn't bad, but split green. :D
I try to save as many birch as possible, white or yellow. If there is an area with sparse birch I even leave a crooked one, hopefully will seed in the area as I thin. ;D

[Don P]

Is this the same as my black birch, aka sweet birch? Very strong wintergreen in the bark?

[SwampDonkey]

@Don P 

No, this is a different species with golden yellow bark and also has wintergreen taste. b. alleghaniensis

Grey birch is a large shrub, looks like white birch but has tight bark and wiry limbs, glossy triangular leaves. Gets maybe 8" diameter. b. populifolia

[Lebel Logging]

We had 4 wood splitters, Guy, Mike, Paul and Ray.  :D
But saying that we could move some wood.

With a twisty yellow birch you will need the 4 of them   :D

[47sawdust]

It is one of our favorite woods to burn.Not much of a problem to split unless it is twisted.
It seems to be an indicator for a spring or at least water.Our main spring is surrounded by mature and juvenile yellow birch.

[peakbagger]

Yellow Birch is great firewood, the peppermint smell when fresh cut or split is quite noticeable. It also takes a lot of abuse and keeps growing so they tend to get left in the woods after a cut and keep growing. That means they can get big. Our pulpmill would get some monsters on occasion, too big for our chipper, that we would set aside and have contractors come in with a huge splitter to break them up. They can get some nice figure in grain. As noted it can be bear to split especially the beat up old gnarly ones. It is far less prone to the fast rot of white birch if its left unsplit. I still run my saw down the length of the tree to cut the bark if I am going to let it sit.   

[SwampDonkey]

Here's an old bruiser on the woodlot.

[Lebel Logging]

 

 

 

 
Here is a big old one, we left it as a wildlife tree. It would have do quite a mess in most of the direction we could fall it. Only one way to get it down but we doesnt want to risk it.
The pics with the measure tape is at DBH. They can get really big and old.

[Bruno of NH]

I like burning it.
The big narly one can be hard to splt
I like Sawing the nice ones beautiful wood.

[John Mc]

Is this the same as my black birch, aka sweet birch? Very strong wintergreen in the bark?

Yellow Birch has a slight wintergreen smell/taste, not nearly as strong as Black Birch

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Around here birch would never be my "first" choice.    But sure it burns and you'll get the BTU's just fine, and hey, it's a lot better in the stove than snow balls. :D

[SwampDonkey]

But you live in the land of oak and hickory. ;) And I bet yellow birch is rare down there. ;D

I burn fir and aspen mostly, lots of heat. Widows are open. :D

[gspren]

In the woods on my farm, which I'm selling, we have Black Birch which I've heard called Sweet Birch and Cherry Birch, I like cutting it, splitting and burning it. Like other birches it needs bucked and split to season and then kept under roof. I've wondered if the sap from it was where Birch Beer originated. 

[SwampDonkey]

The minty oil is volatile and evaps off when boiled. I know this as I've boiled yellow birch sap.

[cutterboy]

Black birch makes great firewood.. slightly more BTU's than red oak (tho it doesn't split as well) also makes beautiful lumber. I burn a lot of it because I have a lot of it on the farm.

[barbender]

The old growth forests here must've had a fair amount of yellow birch, as oftentimes after the virgin pine was logged companies would double back for the hardwood. Yellow birch was always mentioned in those harvests, whereas today we don't come across it all that much. It is rare enough that it is almost always reserved on our timber sales. White birch grows in abundance. What conditions does yellow birch regenerate well in?

[wisconsitom]

@barbender, yellow birch associates are eastern hemlock, sugar maple, N. red oak, white pine, and some others.  Ideal site is moist well-drained.  Intermediate shade tolerance, less than SM.

It seems like the downward trend in YB recruitment in recent decades might be related to this shading factor-maple is dominating more than in the past, and deer effects.

The area in Wisconsin with the best YB density is roughly from Wausau up to UP border.  Ottawa NF in the UP is best YB area I've ever seen.

It's in the woods around my land but not frequent.  Is one of the few hardwoods I'll probably plant and try to encourage on my postage stamp.  One of these springs!

[SwampDonkey]

The old growth forests here must've had a fair amount of yellow birch, as oftentimes after the virgin pine was logged companies would double back for the hardwood. Yellow birch was always mentioned in those harvests, whereas today we don't come across it all that much. It is rare enough that it is almost always reserved on our timber sales. White birch grows in abundance. What conditions does yellow birch regenerate well in?

The big birch die back/collapse in the early 40's due to a hurricane in 1938. The old growth birch at the time died off. A lot of this was from sun scald of residuals within 3 years post hurricane. In Maine 67% had died and of the remaining ones, 15% were dying. New York Adirondacks lost 25%, especially on the hill tops. Added to that was the death of the beech from bark disease and stands with a lot of balsam fir collapsing from age or budworms. If you have a stand of birch and fir, when the fir dies out, say bye bye to the birch. Same happens in shelterwood cuts, too much sun on the birch boles. Seen it.

Yellow birch seedlings are easy to grow in nursery. If you have a lot of deer/moose or hares, out planting will be hard. I planted an acre by the house, good success. Out in the woods, the wildlife had them ate within a week. :D

[barbender]

I would imagine it is an issue of deer browse around here. But we do get on certain sites that are thick with YB. Typically wetter soil, on the edge of black spruce/cedar/tamarack. Or on nice moist hilly upland sites. But on the nice hardwood sites, all you see are old growth with no regen.

[moodnacreek]

Don't light a match near the tree .

[peakbagger]

The claim in one of the Pike books is that newbies to the logging camp would be bet that they could not climb a yellow birch. Once the newby was up there they would light the birch curls on the bark and the flames would travel up the tree. I am not sure how true it was. 

[moodnacreek]

Sounds like 'Spiked Boots'.

[Oliver05262]

Yellow birch makes nice furniture. H T Cushman here in North Bennington, VT used it exclusively. I don't know all the reasons, but the one I was told was that or takes stain more evenly than a lot of other woods. They had a " secret sauce" recipe for their maple colored stain that other furniture manufacturers tried real hard to duplicate.

[petefrom bearswamp]

Not much Yellow birch in my woods.
There are a number of BTU charts on line.
BTU content is right up there slightly below White ash.
Black birch is just above the ash.
My splitter doesnt care about difficult splitting.

[wisconsitom]

We had to run up to Wausau to pick up my winch (woo hoo, new skidding winch) and driving from there to my land, we traversed what's got to be this state's best yellow birch area.  High rocky country (for the Midwest), moist upland mixtures of sugar maple , white ash ,(too bad what's coming for the ash), beech, not diseased, hemlock, and some others.

I tend to think of that area as having some of the finest forests in WI.

Then we hit the Menominee Reservation.  That IS the finest forest in the state!

Our postage stamp is just the other side of the res.

[barbender]

I've heard that the Menominee have a fine forestry program and timber.

[wisconsitom]

Yo bender, not me, but others have at times described the Menominee forestland as best east of the Mississippi.

I can believe it!

[cutterboy]

I thought I'd give an update since I'm now burning the yellow birch I cut last March. It is as good as everyone says it is. It gives a nice even burn and as an all nighter it does well leaving hot coals in the morning. Let me tell you, put a piece on live coals and the little curls of bark will light up in a flash. Instant flames!
All in all, I'm very happy with it.

[KEC]

I think I delivered a trailer load of Yellow Birch to that mill in Vermont from Central NY in the mid 1970's. My brother was yard man at the mill I worked for and he loaded the trailer up enough to have a gross weight of 89,000 lbs. The tractor was an International with a 238 HP Detroit and 10 speed roadranger. It barely had enough power and gears to climb those steep grades and nearly stalled out.  

[barbender]

The sound from that Detroit pulling those grades at #89K is probably still circling the earth!😂

[OntarioAl]

We built a tanker for fire control purposes IHC Tandem Detroit (same Hp.)
RTO 13 over, 2500 imperial gallon tank (used SS milk tank)
Straight pipe
We named "Rolling Thunder"
Cheers
Al

[SwampDonkey]

We get about a 10% yellow birch mix with sugar maple. The amazing thing is on a  clear cut it will come back 90% yellow birch. I was thinning all last fall on ground like that. Millions of yellow birch grew up and scattered maple through it. Just the opposite of the mature forest around it. :D

[wisconsitom]

Yeah, the y. birch is less shade-tolerant than the maple.