Maple wood?


 
D

Don Irish

TVWBB Pro
A neighbor's tree came down and I picked up a large branch about 6 inches in diameter, 7 ft. long. I don't know what type of maple it is (large tree)...are all species good to use?
 
I have used most of the varieties and don't find much difference in flavour.
My latest is a nice piece of silver maple (soft maple some people call it) and it is just fine to use.
Take a look at this website and match the leaves to find out what kind it is: http://www.fw.vt.edu/dendro/forsite/key/intro.htm

Burt
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I would just cut off a couple of chunks, and do a test burn in a chimney. If it smells good when smoking than I would use it.

Tim
 
I've got a couple young maple trees in my yard (only 2-3" diameter except for the main trunk) and I cant wait to use some of that wood...
 
Don, like Burt I've used silver maple before. It's ok. Not my favorite because it's kind of mild.
 
Sadly, we don't seem to have Sugar Maple up my way. We do seem to have an abundance of other varieties and I can state that they all seem to work just fine.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Burtess:
I have used most of the varieties and don't find much difference in flavour.
My latest is a nice piece of silver maple (soft maple some people call it) and it is just fine to use.
Take a look at this website and match the leaves to find out what kind it is: http://www.fw.vt.edu/dendro/forsite/key/intro.htm

Burt
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</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks Burt, and all...that is a great web site Burt...looks like it is Sugar Maple
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Nothing like free wood.
 
I've have a couple of bastich types of Norway maples in my yard. Always smelled a little off to me when I burned the branches in the fire pit. Sugar maple is way
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Tim
 
Some of the ways to tell the maples apart without cutting into them are:

By the seeds. Sugar maples seed (we called them helicopters) in the late summer or early fall. Red and silver maple seed in the spring.

By the leaves. Red and silver maple leaves are much more deeply cut than red or sugar maple. Sugar and red maple leaves are much more similar to each other, however the cut between the lobes on a red maple tends to be sharp, while the sugar tends to be more rounded. This is a little hard to see at first unless you know that you have one leaf from each to begin with.
 
Maple is ok, but as stated above is fairly mild.

Mine comes from my neighbor who is a cabinet maker. Scrap ends that have never been finished, nice tidy 2x2 pieces.
 
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