Beech and birch are the two close-grained, pale hardwoods most often used for chairs, kitchen utensils, toys and painted or stained furniture, and they are easy to confuse in a finished piece. This page compares American beech with yellow birch, the main North American birch lumber species, and sweet birch, using the Wood Handbook tables.
Beech vs Birch: the numbers
| Property | American beech | Yellow birch | Sweet birch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Janka side hardness, 12% MC | 1,300 lbf | 1,260 lbf | 1,470 lbf |
| Density at 12% MC | 44.7 lb/ft³ | 43.4 lb/ft³ | 45.4 lb/ft³ |
| Weight per board foot | 3.73 lb | 3.61 lb | 3.79 lb |
| Bending strength (MOR), 12% MC | 14,900 psi | 16,600 psi | 16,900 psi |
| Stiffness (MOE), 12% MC | 1.72 million psi | 2.01 million psi | 2.17 million psi |
| Crushing strength parallel to grain | 7,300 psi | 8,170 psi | 8,540 psi |
| Shrinkage green to ovendry, tangential | 11.9% | 9.5% | 9.0% |
| Shrinkage, radial | 5.5% | 7.3% | 6.5% |
| Shrinkage, volumetric | 17.2% | 16.8% | 15.6% |
| Tangential / radial ratio (cupping tendency) | 2.16 | 1.3 | 1.38 |
| Width change per 1% MC, flatsawn (Table 13-5) | 0.431% | 0.338% | 0.338% |
| Heartwood decay resistance (Table 14-1) | slightly or nonresistant | slightly or nonresistant | slightly or nonresistant |
What the numbers mean
- Hardness: American beech is 3% harder than Yellow birch (1,300 against 1,260 lbf), so it resists dents from furniture feet, dropped tools and wear correspondingly better.
- Weight: American beech is 3% heavier. A 1 x 6 board 8 feet long (4 board feet nominal) weighs about 14.9 lb in american beech and 14.4 lb in yellow birch at 12% moisture content.
- Strength and stiffness: Yellow birch is 11% stronger in bending and 17% stiffer. Stiffness is what decides how much a shelf of the same size sags under the same load.
- Movement: a flatsawn board 10 in wide that goes from 6% to 12% moisture content (a dry winter to a humid summer indoors) swells about 0.259 in (1/4 in) in american beech and 0.203 in (3/16 in) in yellow birch, from Handbook Eq. 13-2 and the Table 13-5 coefficients. Allow for this in table tops, panels and floors.
- Decay resistance of the heartwood: American beech: slightly or nonresistant; Yellow birch: slightly or nonresistant; Sweet birch: slightly or nonresistant. Sapwood of every species has low decay resistance.
- The percentages above compare the first two columns; the table also lists Sweet birch for comparison.
Appearance, working and what to watch for
Both woods have a fine, even texture with no large open pores, so they take paint and a smooth clear finish without grain filling. Beech is easiest to tell by its rays: they show as small, dark flecks scattered over every face, most clearly on quartersawn boards. Birch has no visible flecks, and yellow birch often has a soft curl or wavy figure. Beech heartwood is a light reddish brown; birch heartwood is light reddish brown too, with paler sapwood that is often sold separately as white birch.
The main practical difference is movement. Beech shrinks substantially, the Handbook warns, and needs careful drying; its tangential to radial ratio is among the highest of common hardwoods, so flatsawn beech boards cup more as the seasons change. Yellow birch shrinks a similar amount in total but more evenly. On the other side, beech is the classic steam-bending wood: the Handbook calls it highly suitable for steam bending, and it machines smoothly and turns very well. Yellow birch is the tougher of the two in the impact test.
Buying beech and birch
American beech is sold mostly to flooring, furniture and woodenware mills, so retail lumberyards often stock little of it; European beech, a different species, is common in imported furniture and as steamed beech lumber. Birch is easy to find as lumber and as plywood. Baltic birch plywood is made from European birches and has many thin, void-free plies, which makes it popular for jigs, drawers and cabinets. When buying solid birch, ask whether it is mixed, red (heartwood) or white (sapwood) grade, since the colour difference is large.
Which to choose: verdict by use
| Use | Better choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Bentwood chairs and steam-bent parts | Beech | Highly suitable for steam bending, per the Handbook. |
| Wide table tops and panels | Birch | Lower tangential/radial ratio, so less cupping. |
| Turned items, tool handles and utensils | Either | Both are fine-textured and turn well; beech is the traditional choice. |
| Painted cabinets and furniture | Birch | Smooth, closed grain and steady supply as lumber and plywood. |
| Workbench tops | Beech | Hard, heavy and wears well; the European tradition. |
| Parts that take shock | Yellow birch | Higher impact bending value in the Handbook tests. |
Frequently asked questions
Is beech harder than birch?
Slightly harder than yellow birch: 1,300 lbf against 1,260 lbf in the Wood Handbook. Sweet birch, sold with the birches, is harder again at 1,470 lbf.
Which is more stable, beech or birch?
Birch. Beech has a higher tangential/radial shrinkage ratio and a higher tangential shrinkage (11.9% against 9.5%), so flatsawn beech moves and cups more.
Is beech or birch better outdoors?
Neither. Both are rated slightly or nonresistant in decay resistance. Beech is rather easy to treat with preservatives, which is why treated beech is used for railway ties.
Sources and method
All property values are read from our parsed copy of the USDA Forest Products Laboratory Wood Handbook: Wood as an Engineering Material (FPL-GTR-190, 2010), a US Government publication in the public domain, the same data as the wood species database. The percentages and the board examples above are our arithmetic on those values. The values describe small, clear, straight-grained specimens: real boards with knots or sloping grain differ, and structural lumber is sized from graded design values in your local building code, not from this table.
- USDA Forest Products Laboratory. Wood Handbook: Wood as an Engineering Material. General Technical Report FPL-GTR-190, 2010. Chapter 2 (species descriptions), Chapter 4 (Tables 4-3, 4-4 shrinkage; Eq. 4-7, 4-9, 4-12 density), Chapter 5 (Tables 5-3b, 5-5b strength and hardness), Chapter 13 (Table 13-5 dimensional change coefficients), Chapter 14 (Table 14-1 decay resistance)
- USDA Forest Products Laboratory. Wood Handbook, 2021 edition (FPL-GTR-282)
Last reviewed: 24 October 2026. How we build and check our data: methodology and corrections. Spotted an error? Please let us know.