What is cherry firewood like?
When it comes to sitting around a campfire to keep warm, or simply enjoying the ambiance that fills the room from a natural fireplace fire, it’s crucial to consider which firewoods are best to light in your home.
Cherry Firewood is a specific wood sometimes used for indoor fires but best for outdoor ones. Cherry wood isn’t very smoky and emits a sweet cherry wood smell that’s also fitting for smoking food.
People can use the wood for both purposes, making it versatile but also pricier than other varieties.
The Cherry Tree
Black cherry wood derives from the American Black Cherry Tree, a tall and beautiful tree that grows cherries and has a soft red tint to its wood. Its bark has tiny but noticeable notches, another sign you’re dealing with cherry wood.
Based on the tree name, one can find them in North America. Primarily located on the East Coast of the United States and some scattered in Mexico, the Black Cherry Tree isn’t rare, but people won’t find it anywhere else.
The red coloring makes it a beautiful tree in forests and when sectioned into logs.
There are two specific types of cherry wood:
- Black cherry
- Sweet cherry
Neither are particularly difficult to harvest, but the struggle comes with using the wood for fires. Black cherry is the wood used for fires, but the question is how useful it is.
Cherry Firewood
Cherry Firewood is a hardwood with both advantages and disadvantages concerning keeping a fire alive.
One of the main notable qualities is the lack of smoke produced when burning cherry wood. It’s a popular wood for open fireplaces because of the limited fumes and sparks.
The delicious smell the kindling surrounds you with isn’t the only reason it is a well-known firewood.
Many individuals enjoy it because of how easy spilling cherry wood is when it’s dry. With it only needing half a year — a year at best — to fully dry and be ready to light, cherry wood beats out others in the effectiveness department.
Where this firewood fails is the heat output. More like an aspen tree and less like a birch tree, the temperature cherry wood firewood reaches is low on the scale for firewoods.
It’s a wood that doesn’t get very hot, and split cherry wood burns quickly. So, as the video states, this wood is as good as others for the wood stove.
However, cherry firewood redeems itself in its coal making.
It may not stay hot with high flames the entire time it’s lit, but the coals it produces last an incredibly long time. They’ll retain heat and keep a soft glow in your living room and create a good bed for other types of firewood.
I’ve used cherry wood before for cooking and outdoor camping.
My pork ended up sweet and flavorful, and when I used it for camping, the coals remained lit for hours. You should purchase this type of wood if you want to avoid restarting your fire several times on a longer camping trip.
It also surrounded us with a sweet aroma, and we didn’t have to constantly swat smoke from our eyes and lungs. It was summertime, though, so the heat wasn’t what we were looking for in our campfire. I also wasn’t hoping for a quick cook time smoking the pork.
Because of its features that tailor more toward luxury than survival or heat, this wood tends to be on the higher end of prices. It’s a wood for a warm aura, not for great warmth from the cold, though it’s better than poplar.
Depending on where you live, the long-lasting fire and sweet aroma produced by cherry wood make it one of the more expensive ones to use. These qualities also make it great for smoking food, only upping the price for its versatile functions.
Cherry Firewood FAQs
Here are some common questions about cherry wood.
Is cherry wood good firewood?
Wood from cherry tree logs makes good use of firewood depending on what you’re looking for in a fire.
If you’re seeking a sweet-smelling wood to burn in your open fireplace and add a calming glow to your home, then yes, but if you want a wood that’s going to produce a lot of heat and keep you warm, then no.
What does cherry wood look like?
Apart from its noticeable cherry-colored tint and tiny horizontal ridges on its light-gray bark, it can become darker and redder in sunlight and even more fitting to its name.
Is there cherry wood for sale near me?
This topic is a question where its answer can vary based on where you live.
While cherry wood is most popularly grown in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York, many people and stores alike sell it throughout the United States and other countries.
A simple solution to finding this kind of wood is checking at your local lumber or home improvement store to see if they have it in stock.
Because of cherry wood’s popularity, the chances are high that it’s for sale in your area.
Is Cherry Wood Good To Burn?
Cherry Firewood is an extremely popular wood for many different reasons.
Homeowners can utilize the kindling for in-home and open fireplaces because of its low smoke and spark tendencies. Cherry wood is firewood that stays lit for hours and can smoke delicious meals over time.
This specific wood is neither a high-temp firestarter nor a cheap type to buy with the hope of saving money. You get what you pay for with cherry wood if its advantages suit you and what you’re looking for in firewood.
If you want to be blanketed in a soft ambiance of sweetness and a relaxing and long-lasting glow, cherry wood is the firewood you should consider purchasing.
