Cooking the sap out of pine block

I am in the midst of creating a display for some little bottle stopper pieces I've been working on.  I have become enamored of using a big block of pine for this purpose.  The wood has some checking ( large cracks ) that disqualify it for use as a turned vessel.  Still,  this big raw block of wood has a presence and it would be a shame to toss it in the fire pit.  I cut it into large triangles and drilled some holes and left it on the work bench the other day.  When I next picked it up I noted it has sap coming up from inside as it had gotten hot in the sun.  Even though I want the majority of the block to be raw, the face where the holes are will fine sanded and varnished, thus sap is bad.  Lacking a kiln I am giving the oven a try.

Ended up cooking the block at 210˚ F.  Had to up the temp from 170˚ as I noticed the temp was lower than 170, probably around 130, not really hot at all.  210˚ got things going.  The sap welled up in beads and also dripped down the sides.  The block was also considerably lighter after this baking for a couple hours.  I noted I had some more checking/cracks after baking, but since I am not turning the block, I haven't worried about it.

This pine has so much sap in it that I can light it like a candle.  I was doing some flame surfacing of another block and it began to wick the sap out of the would to feed the flame.  It burned and burned and burned.  I ended up blowing it out.  Later, when I threw some scraps on a fire, the smoke was black, like I was burning tires.  I had to take the blocks out as I was going to grill some food and the smoke would have ruined everything.  I don't know the tree species, but it was a big thing, I grabbed the wood from the side of the road.