[Frank Ford]

I suspect you'll want to read up on kiln drying and seasoning wood.

For example, I believe Taylor, Collings and others oven-dry spruce to make it less susceptible to future cracking when a guitar is in a dry environment. It's not a process intended to improve tone.

LMI and other wood suppliers use kiln drying to equilibrate woods to ambient humidity, and it's often a matter of slowing moisture loss to avoid cracking tropical and delicate hardwoods.

Offhand, I don't recall hearing any particular talk about kiln drying in regard to tone - either improving or degrading it.

Traditional air drying often meant that wood went through many cycles of higher and lower humidity, especially when left in covered open sheds outside in the elements. Conventional wisdom is that wood becomes less reactive after years in that kind of storage. That is more what the "cooking" is about - gaining stability. That kind of low-isn temperature cooking is to be distinguished from the current fad of high temperature controlled atmosphere torrefaction which is more about tone, stiffness, etc.

When I asked the folks at Collings if they cooked all their guitar tops, I received my answer: "Yes, but they are BAKED, not FRIED. . ."