Guide to the Best Firewood

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Editor's Note: This guide to the best firewood is excerpted from the Winter 2012 issue of Living Ready.

One of my friends once said as he looked over his personal library, “When I have a lot of good books I feel wealthy.” I feel the same way about firewood, but different types of firewood have different characteristics. Some burn fast with intense heat and some burn slow and ooze heat throughout the night. Others kick off too many sparks or smoke. Some wood, such as hickory or maple, are great for smoking meats, while evergreens, like pine or spruce, will leave your pork chop with a Pine-Sol flavor.

To help narrow things down, Living Ready put together this guide to the best firewood. Look for the embed code below to paste it onto your own website or blog.

Species	Heat	lbs./cord	Ease of Lighting	Coaling Qualities	Sparks	Fragrance
Alder	Med-Low	2540	Fair	Good	Moderate	Slight
Apple	High-Med	4400	Difficult	Excellent	Few	Excellent
Ash	High	3440	Fairly Difficult	Good-Excellent	Few	Slight
Beech	High	3760	Difficult	Excellent	Few	Good
Birch (White)	Med	3040	East	Good	Moderate	Slight
Cherry	Med	2060	Difficult	Excellent	Few	Excellent
Elm	High	2260	Very Difficult	Good	Very Few	Fair
Hickory	Very High	4240	Fairly Difficult	Excellent	Moderate	Excellent
Ironwood	Very High	4000	Very Difficult	Excellent	Few	Slight
Locust (Black)	Very High	3840	Difficult	Excellent	Very Few	Slight
Madrone	High	4320	Difficult	Excellent	Very Few	Slight
Maple (Red)	High-Med	3200	Fairly Difficult	Excellent	Few	Good
Maple (Sugar)	High	3680	Difficult	Excellent	Few	Good
Mesquite	Very High	N/A	Very Difficult	Excellent	Few	Excellent
Oak (Live)	Very High	4600	Very Difficult	Excellent	Few	Fair
Oak (Red)	High	3680	Difficult	Excellent	Few	Fair
Oak (White)	Very High	4200	Difficult	Excellent	Few	Fair
Pecan	High	N/A	Fairly Difficult	Good	Few	Good
Walnut	High-Med	N/A	Fairly Difficult	Good	Few	Fair

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