How Long Does It Take To Season Maple Firewood?

When you hear the word maple, most people will likely think of one of the world’s most popular breakfast foods: maple syrup pancakes!

However, while maple trees might very well make delicious syrup, it’s also worth noting that maple trees make for pretty great firewood, too.

Maple wood is great as firewood because, besides being extremely affordable and easily accessible, maple wood is a great conductor of heat and can make a great, long-lasting burn.

While it’s not the thickest of woods, it doesn’t create plumes of smoke, splits very easily, and smells delicious. 

While we’re sure that you can no doubt nab yourself some seasoned maple firewood from your local firewood supplier, if you are interested in trying out seasoning maple wood for yourself, then this article is going to be talking you through everything you need to know!

Along the way, we’ll also be sharing with you a variety of helpful insights and tips on how to get the very most out of your maple firewood.

From its most common characteristics, how well it burns and produces heat, all the way to how long you can expect it to season if you plan on doing it yourself - this guide is going to cover all bases! Read on.

What Is Maple Wood?

Before we jump into how long maple wood can take to season, we first think that it would be a good idea to talk you through some of the main characteristics of maple wood, so you can gain a better understanding of how well it will serve you as firewood.

Let’s take a look below:

Basic appearance - If you’re already familiar with maple wood, then we’re sure that you’re already familiar with the way that it differs from other types of firewood species of trees!

For starters, maple wood leaves are typically large in appearance with green pointed lobed leaves that can change to red, golden, and brown during the fall and winter.

They typically tend to have dark brown fruits with brown, reddish-hued twigs. 

Average size - More often than not, maple wood trees can typically tend to grow to be around 75 feet high, although in city environments maple trees typically tend to grow to be far shorter than wild maple trees, with the average height at maturation being around 30 feet tall. 

Bark color - Although the color of maple trees can vary depending on a variety of different situational factors, the most common bark color that you will likely see maple tree bark being is dark brown bark with a slightly gray tinge.

In addition to this, the majority of maple trees will have a bark that contains ridges and splits on its surface. 

Maple tree fruit - Interestingly, all maple trees are able to produce their very own fruits, which go by the official name of Samara.

These seedpods tend to contain one to two seeds that are typically around 2 inches and length and can grow into maple tree fruit. 

How Long Does Maple Tree Firewood Take To Season?

However, if you would like to try your hand at seasoning your very own maple wood, then it’s important to make sure that you’re well aware of how long you’ll need to season it for. 

When it comes to the average time frame required to season maple wood for firewood, you’re likely going to need to give your maple wood around 6 months for it to season correctly and be ready for use on a fire.

While this is significantly shorter than denser types of wood that require upwards of a 1 year to 2 years to properly season, 6 months is still a lengthy amount of time, so you will need to make sure that you’ve made the proper storage arrangements so that your maple wood will be able to season without being disturbed. 

Ideally, we recommend that you prepare your maple wood by chopping it up into smaller logs, as smaller-sized wood logs are able to season far more quickly than larger logs.

Then, after you have done this, we recommend that you then create a storage hut for your firewood to season, and make sure that it is somewhere that will get plenty of direct sunlight to help speed up the seasoning process.

How To Know If Your Maple Wood Is Correctly Seasoned:

So, after you have given your maple wood enough time to season, you’ll need to make sure that you’re checking it to make sure that it is correctly seasoned before you try to burn it on the fire.

To do this, we recommend inspecting the ends of the maple wood logs that you have been seasoning.

If the maple firewood logs are very dark in appearance and appear to have cracks across the surface, then this is a strong indicator that the maple wood has been correctly seasoned. 

In addition to this, you can also make sure that your maple wood is correctly seasoned by taking two logs and carefully knocking them both together.

If they make a “hollow” sound, then you can assume that all of the moisture content within the maple firewood has been given enough time to properly dry out - aka, season!

However, if you notice that your maple wood has any green color visible in the wood, then it means that your maple wood still needs time to season/dry out for a longer period of time.