which species is better

[Woody Stover]

You are right about the blight. Oyster mushrooms have grown on my holz hauzens in wet summers. Unfortunately, all I seem to cut these days is beech--since they are coming down like crazy on my land. A healthy beech tree has comparable BTUs to oak and seasons quicker. If I ever get caught up on the dead-fall, I will start dropping any beech over 10 inches--to get it before the rot does. The heart wood seems to stay intact, but it pains me to sacrifice half of the volume of a spit just to get at the good stuff.

I don’t have a split of healthy beech at hand but here is what badly blighted beech looks like. Rot inside had started inside a larger hole. I hadn’t known the cause of this damage.


View attachment 310128

Unfortunate about the blight. But pic posted by Max looks like mostly solid meat. 👍
I like Red Oak for the reasons mentioned above--good heat/coaling, easy splitting, low amount of ash. The vast majority of what I get here is Red Oak, which die way more often than other species. I'm glad to have it, but the rotted sapwood on these deadfalls is a pain. If it's rotted to the point I can just scrape it off with a hatchet blade, that's nice.

 

[stoveliker]

I leave the soft (punky) sapwood on oak from dead standing trees - no kindling needed, just point the propane torch on the splits and off you go.

 

[mcdougy]

I have never noticed a beech with blight if that what it looks like. But maybe I didn't even realize it was a beech. That's unfortunate.