Please help with wood problems!

[Lipstick]

I have been cooking in our new Forno Bravo 42" Toscana pizza oven for about a month now. One of my biggest problems is finding wood. I finally found a guy who would deliver it. He said it was between 1-2 years seasoned. He had oak and red oak for me. When he brought it, my husband helped unload it. When I saw it (after he was gone) I said it was too big and should be split. My sons did that today. There were a few pieces we threw away because they smelled rotten. We noticed a few pieces had a lot of bugs, ants, and even some grub was seen. I threw them as well. When we were done I decided to burn some wood so I fired up the oven. I am SO new to this I don't know what is normal - but I do know it should burn better than it is. It isn't catching fire very well - and when I finally get it going, it doesn't stay lit. Then on some of the wood I noticed some wet looking stuff oozing out of the ends of some of the wood. Why is this? Can someone explain this process to me? Do I need to now let it season since we split the wood - since it was a little too big for my liking? I guess I thought if it was seasoned, it's seasoned - whether it's split some more or not - but maybe this isn't so? Anyone with knowledge of wood that can help me would be so very appreciated. Thanks a bunch!

[Gulf]

Seasoned means one thing to me, that is that it has been at least one year since it has been cut. That is all well and good if it has been kept off the ground, and has been kept dry. That helps keep the bugs out and keeps it from rotting. If it hasn't, we end up with what you just described. Very sorry! You need to find a new wood supplier. If not, ask for fresh cut and store it properly yourself for a year. You can still salvage most of what you have already bought. But, it will take a few weeks for even the small splits to dry. A little longer for the largest. You can also load the wood for your oven's next firing directly into the oven after it falls below 300 degrees. (make sure there are no live coals present) That will help it dry a little quicker.

[Lipstick]

Thank you so much Gulf! I was thinking the same thing. We've already thrown away any questionable pieces. This was actually our second load of wood we've gotten (not from the same source!). The first load we got it from my husband's brother. He said he had seasoned red oak and we could have all we wanted. So we got a trailer load (pickup load) full. But it was big logs that hadn't been split. So of course we took it anyway and split it. So we have that stacked as well - waiting for that to season. So I imagine next summer we will have all kinds of wood to burn. Thank you for sharing your expertise - it helped a lot!