dry wood for outdoor oven?

[cinnaminnacat]

I would like to have an outdoor wood burning oven for pizza and bread but what about a supply of wood for it?

can you buy it or do you need to cut and dry your own in lower Puna? (something with a good flavor and capable of burning hot for an hour or more, not too much ash)

[rainyjim]

Keawe is the best.

Difficult to come by on this side.

Good to make friends with some kona / kau side and maybe trade some avos or citrus for some keawe.

Ohia is also pretty good but not so great as keawe

Definitely need to let dry for about a year from cutting as 'green'

[Carey]

Most all fruit tree wood is good for food...on this side easy to get is waiawi (strawberry guava).

We routinely trim our avo & citrus trees & at least 2 times a year give away the trimmed & cut up branch logs...I am sure many of your neighbors may also...)tight now have a stack of avo logs that we cut last fall...but this winter must of our friends that heat with wood has plenty, due to the storm falls this year...

and Ohia is a nice clean, hot burning wood (much like oak), so if you know of neighbors clearing areas of their lot, you might score some Ohia..

[terracore]

You can come and cut and haul away guava wood away from my property for free. It dries very quickly. Not kiawe, regular domestic guava. The trees are small and manageable. You could use a small chain saw. I only ask that you take the whole tree (you can leave stumps) and not cherry pick the stuff that's easiest to harvest and leaving me with a mess to clean up. I've been hauling the wood to the green waste dump a few pickup truckloads a month. Would prefer it be used for something other than compost.

[Peter Epperson]

I love my wood oven http://www.pacificgunite.com/custom-designs.html
We have a, limited, source for dry ohia from Kau. It's the best. Guava is ok too. It burns very hot and very fast. Ohia ads a nice flavor. After the last few storms we've had I've chopped up many fallen ohias just from my property alone here in Hawaiian Acres. It needs to dry for a year or two but I'm gonna be set for a while. There are still many fallen trees out there.

[cinnaminnacat]

Thanks to all for the ideas and offers of wood.

My oven is not ready yet. It's going to be part of a garden/entertainment area we are building.

It sounds like we should also be building a wood drying shed of some kind to ensure a long term supply of choice wood.

How do you "dry" wood in puna?

[rainyjim]

Keep it covered out of the rain for about 1 year if green (fresh cut).

Probably some good strategies out there to prevent it from becoming a rat / termite palace in the process.