Blue spruce firewood

[ABMax24]

For you spruce burners out there. Does that sap eventually season enough that it just burns hot & fast, but not splatter sap inside the stove and onto the stove glass?

I just split, by hand, 2/3 cord of Sitka spruce that was dropped off at my house for free. I was amazed by those pockets of honey-like sap and sometimes it's more like a vein of gold sap rather than a pocket. One split broke like an onion along a tree ring of the split, with the entire length of each half of the split where it broke, coated in sap. I wiped some onto a rock, put a match to the wet rock and it burned for a while. Tried the same to the split and it did a long smokey burn as well, but not the wood itself. Even my young kids and wife were amazed and usually they couldn't care less about wood. I later found YouTube has plenty of videos showing how pine sap picked off a tree makes a nice survival fire starter and I tried it with a nugget of sap from the bark of a round. I'm just a little wary of burning liquid fire starter in my stove which has meticulously clean & clear glass.

Yes eventually it dries out and will make less of a mess, note I said "less". The lighter ends in the sap seem to evaporate off and leave a much thicker sap, if left long enough in a hot dry place the sap will harden similar to the "sap nuggets" you have seen. Making sure the wood is dry will greatly reduce the soot output from the wood, sappy pine and spruce can be deceiving as it appears to burn quite well even though it can be far too wet, which obviously creates concern for creosote buildup in the chimney.

As for the glass I don't have an issue, quite often the sap will splatter on the glass, but generally by time the wood has burnt down the sap has also burnt off the glass. However if you have an ash lip below the door sap droplets that are cooked on are generally very difficult or impossible to remove.

 

[mar13]

I just inspected the left over burn resin resulting from my experimental burning of a sap nugget. It's like a black glass epoxy that has dried onto the terracotta pot on which it had been burning. I can imagine this would be hard to clean.

Well, I guess I'll just have to find out myself how it reacts once seasoned either in the winter of 22/23 or 23/24 winter.

 

[SpaceBus]

My spruce and fir splits like to pop, hiss, and splatter sap all over the firebox. However, this doesn't affect anything. The sap burns off quickly and you can't ever tell it happened.

 

[SpaceBus]

Yes eventually it dries out and will make less of a mess, note I said "less". The lighter ends in the sap seem to evaporate off and leave a much thicker sap, if left long enough in a hot dry place the sap will harden similar to the "sap nuggets" you have seen. Making sure the wood is dry will greatly reduce the soot output from the wood, sappy pine and spruce can be deceiving as it appears to burn quite well even though it can be far too wet, which obviously creates concern for creosote buildup in the chimney.

As for the glass I don't have an issue, quite often the sap will splatter on the glass, but generally by time the wood has burnt down the sap has also burnt off the glass. However if you have an ash lip below the door sap droplets that are cooked on are generally very difficult or impossible to remove.

Indeed, all of my softwoods have stayed sticky, even for years. Since most of my wood is spruce and fir I have to clean the sap of my hands every time I load a stove. Any kind of oil (vegetable, olive, mineral, etc.) or solvent will take it right off. Usually I just use lotion (which is solvent and oil) and my skin then absorbs the sap which has positive effects for your skin.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

And everybody around you comments, "Wow, you smell like a pine tree!"

 

[mar13]

Hand sanitizer also works for removing sap from the hands. I have plenty of that around these days....

 

[SpaceBus]

Hand sanitizer also works for removing sap from the hands. I have plenty of that around these days....

It's just alcohol with an added oil. Basically lotion with less moisturizer.

 

[EbS-P]

I just inspected the left over burn resin resulting from my experimental burning of a sap nugget. It's like a black glass epoxy that has dried onto the terracotta pot on which it had been burning. I can imagine this would be hard to clean.

Well, I guess I'll just have to find out myself how it reacts once seasoned either in the winter of 22/23 or 23/24 winter.

I imagine the heat in the stove will result is cleaner more complete burn. I had a good sized dry split that was really just fat wood really take of and the stove was on its way to overfiring. I only notice more soot when lighting a cold stove or if I throw a big knot it at the end of the day and come back in the morning with my pine.