Cat engagement ?

I do the same thing, I rake the coals in a pile together up front, open the air and engage the cat, as long as your still up to temp your ok.

I never need to rake the coals, I just open up the air if I want to burn them down quicker.

Todd said:

I never need to rake the coals, I just open up the air if I want to burn them down quicker.

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I find that the coals burn down more completely if I don't stir them up. Sometimes I have to dig them out of the sides of that big firebox, though. The other day I had almost a full split on one side that was charred, but still intact. It flamed right up and off gassed like crazy. The other side had a full split, but it was pretty light, and broke of after I beat on it with the poker a few times. This was after 36+ hours, though, and the cat was getting down in the inactive zone. Got me through till evening

kayakkeith said:

So I have a Woodstock Keystone and the question is........
The stove is at about the 3 hour stage of burning with cat engaged- stove temp is around 350 or so- down to a big bed of coals that I need to stir up and push together- so I disengage the cat and open the door to push the coals around and when I am done close the door and re engage the cat - door is only open about 30 seconds or so

Any issues

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I've known folks who have burned less than perfect wood and with this, you will get some extra coaling. Raking the coals can help in burning them up a bit faster so it is okay to do that. For sure open the bypass before opening the firebox door else you will get a face full of smoke. Then after closing the door, engage the cat again.

One thing we found for burning down a big coal bed is to open the draft full when the stove top gets down to maybe 350 or even 400. Not much worry about all the heat going up the chimney at those temperatures and by the time the stove is down to 300, most of the coals have burned. It works.