The secrets to getting "good" firewood
By Valérie Lejeune on 04/11/2016 Le Figaro
Some stacks of wood are real works of art. Photo: Morten AAS
A worldwide bookstore success, Man and Wood reveals all the secrets of the Scandinavian method. In particular drying, crucial step to obtain a good fire.
"When a white man returns his wood, winter promises to be severe," says the Indian of the joke. Whether you girdle your forehead with feathers or hair, stocking up on logs becomes, in these times of frost, a gesture that is both elegant and useful. In The Man and the Wood, a worldwide bookshop success, the Norwegian Lars Mytting very nicely exposes "the secrets of the Scandinavian method". Clearly, everything a human should know about the god of fire and his acolyte wood.
Below 20%
Finding it, cutting it down, cutting it, splitting it, transporting it, storing it are the preambles to an absolutely essential chapter in this area: drying. With wet wood, chimney that snores, stove in a bad mood, and quidam transi. This shows the importance of the operation consisting, during the spring and summer months, of eliminating the maximum amount of water cut from the precious fuel cut at the end of winter. Because for the wood to burn properly, its humidity level (easily measurable with a hygrometer) must drop below 20%.
Authentic work of art
The weapon of choice for trapper trainees, the pile, the drying place par excellence, can be circular, low, high, on the wall, square, in basket, in beehive. And take all the looks of an authentic work of art as shown in the photos we publish with this article. Installed in the garden, she will creak there all summer and will be put away at the stake before the wind comes and we sit by the fireplace to read Build a fire, by Jack London, at the corner of hers.
The Man and the Wood, by Lars Mytting, Gaïa Éditions, 240 p., 24 €.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/jardin/2016/11/0 ... uffage.php
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