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When wood is exposed to the high heat temperatures of the roasting process, its cellular structure collapses. As a result, the wood does not shrink or expand significantly in response to moisture level changes.

Making TMW is a complicated, four-step process. To start off, the untreated lumber is dimensioned at the sawmill. Then it’s brought to the kiln and the first step begins: slowly heating the wood to 212 degrees. In the second step, the wood is preconditioned by drying it to nearly 0% moisture content.

This wood resists decay, but it’s totally free of chemicals.

Now it’s ready for the crucial third step, where the temperature of the wood is raised to 374-482 degrees for several hours. At this high temperature the natural sugars in the wood are converted into substances that all the agents of rot—insects, mold and fungus—cannot eat. In the final step, the wood is cooled and some moisture is restored, bringing it up to around 6% to 7% MC.

Source: Stanton, C. (25 March, 2014) Popular Woodworking, Thermally Modified Wood, https://www.popularwoodworking.com/projects/thermally-modified-wood/.

Additionally, torrefaction changes the appearance of wood. The color tone of the wood darkens in proportion to the kiln temperature and the kiln time.

Several years ago, a client asked us to roast Eastern Rock Sugar Maple wood. However, they wanted the outbound color to look like dark ebony wood rather than the light brown color tone we normal produce. To do this, we used a very high kiln temperature and left the wood in the kiln for longer than usual.

The hardwood maple turned ebony black. Unfortunately, it also imploded. The wood color was great but it became weak and brittle. The cells collapsed to the point that the outbound maple was honeycombed and unusable.

Thermally treating wood also reduces the wood’s weight. The weight lost reflects the amount of moisture removed during the kiln process. Thus, the potential water weight loss is not dramatic.

I compare it to a boxer who spends a few hours in the sauna prior to weigh in. Any weight loss depends on how long he/she stays in the sauna. However, that weight loss is limited to water weight that can be safely shed. It follows that attempting to eliminate all water weight is unsafe.

To illustrate, a traditionally kiln dried maple board has a moisture content of 8%. If after torrefaction that drops down to 5% moisture content, the weight loss = 3% of the weight of water.

Roasting causes wood to shrink. For some reason, this often catches people by surprise.

Anyone who has air-dried lumber knows that wood shrinks significantly from the time that it is green to the time that it reaches acclimation.

The shrinkage from roasting is often only in the 1/16″-1/8″ range. However, if the wood enters the roasting kiln at the net finish dimensions, you have a problem.

Because tempered wood becomes more stable, many woodworkers incorrectly assume it also becomes stronger. In fact, the opposite is true.

When cells collapse and moisture dissipates from wood , it loses strength and pliability. In most cases, the loss is negligible. However, using the example of my maple-to-ebony experiment above, the wood became unusable.

To illustrate, imagine finding a freshly felled 5″ diameter green log sitting on the forest floor. Despite the small diameter, you cannot snap the log using your hands. However, if that log sits for 10 months on the forest floor before spending 5 hours in a camp fire, it becomes brittle and breakable.

This occurs as a direct result of the log’s moisture loss and cell damage.

Basically, when wood needs to remain stable and flat, roasting helps a lot. Any situation where the structural integrity of wood faces environmental moisture is a good time to use thermally treated wood. Common applications include:

Accordingly, we supply roasted maple, roasted alder, roasted mahogany, roasted swamp ash and many other roasted woods. Uses range from instrument wood for guitars, basses and other musical instruments to flooring and millwork. Additionally, tempered tonewoods may resonate louder, or at least differently than non-tempered woods.

Figured maple woods are interesting to look at. However, many figured maples are inherently unstable. Thus, roasting fixes many of the stability issues that make figured maples difficult to use.

Birdseye Maple is perhaps the best example of this. The larger and higher density the birdseye is, the more desirable it is from a consumer standpoint.