Roasted Alder 2024

Roasted Alder Torrefied Wood 

Roasted alder or baked alder is Alnus rubra or Red Alder that has been thermally modified or torrefied. 

Since Alder is a relatively soft medium density hardwood,  it roasts fairly easily.  In other words, thermally treating alder is unlikely to damage its internal wood fiber structure.

Similar to other roasted hardwoods,  baking reduces alder’s weight and darkens its color in direct proportion to the length and temperature used in the kiln.  

Roasted Alder Pros & Cons 

Alder is likely the most popular Pacific Coast hardwood for commercial woodworking applications.

Roasted Alder Advantages:

1. Cost. It is typically on the low end of hardwood lumber pricing, on par with Red Oak or Soft Maple. Alder is less expensive than most commercially available exotic hardwoods.
2. Availability.  Many North American retail and wholesale hardwood lumber distributors offer alder lumber for sale in 4/4, 6/4, 8/4 thickness.
3. Grades. Due to the somewhat knotty nature of alder logs,  sawmills produce a variety of grades, whether they intend to or not. There are not enough large clean alder logs to produce only top grades like FAS, Select or Superior lumber boards.  Thus, knotty, rustic, character, frame and shop grades are also available in addition to superior.  
4. Machinability. Alder is easy to machine and does not blunt tools. Additionally, its grain does not tear out easily.
5.  Adaptability.  Its grain is similar to that of cherry, alder, and maple. Also,  there is no significant distinction between its heartwood and sapwood. Thus, with a stain, it can be made to look like many more expensive woods. This is helpful when the appearance of the wood is more important than the actual specie.

Roasted Alder Disadvantages:

1. Density. While alder’s soft inner strength makes is easy to machine,  it also limits its usefulness when durability is required.
2. The Best Alder Grade still kind of sucks. Superior Alder is misleading.  The highest grade of commercially sawn alder is a proprietary grade known as Superior.  However, superior grade is misleading. It may be superior to the next lowest grade of alder but is certainly not superior to the other top grades of hardwoods like oak, maple, cherry and even walnut.  Basically, the Superior grade sounds great but allows for more knots & defects than it implies.  This is why it’s so hard to find clear alder boards when buying alder lumber.

Roasted Alder Benefits? 

We roast 8/4 alder to increase its stability and lower it’s overall weight. Once it’s baked, alder drops in weight in proportion to the amount of moisture removed.  

This creates lighter & more stable alder guitar body blanks. Additionally, increased stability means that our 8/4 Alder door stiles and rails stay straight for exterior door manufacturing applications.

This is especially important with custom Alder wood doors where the length may be 96″ or 120″ long.  Many manufacturers won’t use 8/4 Alder because of the risk of bow or twist at those lengths.  Roasted Alder is significantly more stable than unroasted alder. Thus,  door makers can confidently use 8/4 roasted  lumber instead of 4/4 alder laminations or an engineered door stile.