Too Much Ash & Coals?

This is a common occurance when burning harder woods in an EPA non-cat stove.
I run into this problem frequently when I damper-down after establishing a strong burn.
There is a lot of potential heat content in the unburnt coals, and they work wonders
in getting a new fire going. What I do many times when I run into this circumstance is
"sift" out the coals, either in the firebox with a hand-held cooking grease strainer,
or I scoop the ashes into my carry bucket & use a cookie cooling screen as a screen to capture
the larger coals as I dump my ash into a larger bucket outdoors.

Your other option is to push around the ashes and expose as much of the
unburnt coals as possible prior to re-lighting your stove. A good hot start-up
fire should take care of a lot of them.

I have been using a small hand held garden weeding rake. I put on a glove and use that to rake the coal out of the ashes and then use the shovel to scoop out the ashes in tot he bucket. I also pile the coals into a pile/mound in front of the primary air inlet to help burn them down faster.

Simply lay a few fine splits on the large coals, open the primary air full and let it burn for 30 minutes or so. It will burn down the coals completely.

Andrew

I look at big hot coals as good heat. As long as you're there to keep putting wood in the stove. Overnight burns are when you want to load up and then it can become a problem. I feel your pain.

bluedogz said:

This is pretty much what I'm doing....The big question is, if I let the coals and ash get that deep, am I screwing up my burn?

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probably not too much though as the coals sink into the powdery ash they are trapped in there and while they will hold heat for quite some time you wont get the "burn" all the way out of them.

love the ash rake explanation above I used a "grub hoe" with a metal handle I made at my shop worked quite well just raked the bigger coals forward left the lil ones in the back, then scooped the ash and smaller coals out into the bucket took it outside, extinguished it (watered it down) and left it on the concrete pad with the lid on until the next time. now when the next time came I watered the bucket down again unless it had obviously enough water still in it to ensure it was dead, emptied in the garden patch and repeated

Pull the coals forward, pile them high at the front, skip the split on top, just going to make more coals. Leave air wide open and burn them down. When manageable, spread back out, reload.

My stove makes a MASSIVE coal bed. In the morning on weekends I just open it all up and dig bottom coals out and try to harvest as much heat from coals as I can before reloading. If it's a thick bed that needs tending I'll throw a small night load in and let it burn down completely.

dave_376 said:

I have been using a small hand held garden weeding rake. I put on a glove and use that to rake the coal out of the ashes and then use the shovel to scoop out the ashes in tot he bucket.

Click to expand...

I use something similar. But it's collapsible down to about 2' long and picked it up at Lowe's last month -
http://www.lowes.com/pd_184922-70484-62181_0__?productId=3089507.

Kind of like it. At it's shortest the tines are closer together. Makes it easy to rake coals forward from the back, and being pretty far away at the handle, don't even need a glove. The part that goes in the stove is metal, though there is plastic at the adjustment which is just far enough away it stays a safe distance from the heat in my stove.

That's a one-coal picker. Lol.

Throw a shovel full of coals in the little joe weber grill and have dinner! You can make some mean bob evens sausage in the morning too! Jay

My cheap little iron set came from tractor supply, think it was a pellet stove set, but instead of a poker it has a small rake.
The little rake is the best tool ever, you can pull or push the logs easily and it's great for moving coals.
Think I paid like $15 for the three piece set (rake, shovel, broom and stand)

I made my own coal rake a few weeks ago. Has a rake on one side and a hoe on the other side for moving ashes easily. Made it out of steel I had laying around.

I didn't have the time the other day and it was cold so I just said what the heck and emptied out the little coals and ash.