First burn....questions

Hi RetiredFF - I know nothing about the Regency but will throw out an idea. You probably need to get it cranking stronger and longer before you back off the intake air. It has to get really hot (like 1000 degrees if I remember correctly) inside the firebox to achieve a secondary burn. Unfortunately, I don't know what stovetop or stovepipe temp that translates to in your case. There will be some trial and error involved. Good luck.
For what it's worth, here's something I wrote in a thread about the stove I am familiar with, the Avalon Olympic:
Burning Techniques: if I could give just one piece of advice for running an Olympic from a *cold* start, it would be to get that puppy good and hot with kindling and small splits before laying on the big stuff. The first job is to heat up the stove itself, and it’s a huge hunk of metal. As it happens, I have access to plenty of pallets through work, and think nothing of using a bunch of pallet pieces and small splits to get the stovetop temp up to like 500 degrees or so before adding any normal splits. I start it out wide open (full intake air, bypass open, top flue damper [my own addition] open), let it go for a few minutes that way, then close the bypass. It’s tempting to reduce the intake air because the wood is burning so fast, but I believe that in the long run it’s best to just sacrifice this startup wood and accept the loss as the cost of doing business. When the firebox is hot and some coals are established, I open up the bypass, add medium and/or large splits which usually take off to an active burn with little or no smoldering. Once the big pieces are flaming, I close the bypass, and when they are well charred its time to reduce the intake air (and in my case to partially close the flue damper). This is when the secondary burning takes place, and I haven’t gotten tired of watching that yet. OK, that was from a cold start. If the stove is already hot and there are plenty of coals, I agree with CTwoodburner that a N-S channel through the coals in front of the air inlet helps the next load take off. Since I’m a wood scrounger and have an odd mix of lengths, I like that the Olympic will take long pieces in the E-W orientation. Fireplace or welder’s gloves help a lot when placing those. But in the last couple of years, I’ve started making overnight loads of short (<16 inch) splits or rounds facing N-S whenever I have enough of them. Easier to get a full load in and I think the cumbustion air flow is somewhat better as well.

Retiredff,

I think you're on the right track, and it sounds like what you were seeing is indeed a secondary burn - just not much of one. I'm no expert as this is my first year with an EPA stove, but I noticed the same thing you're seeing. My take on it is that I just didn't get the stove hot enough/enough coals/etc. and was getting a "mini" secondary burn. Through a little trial and error, the following seems to be working for me:

1) Build up a nice, substantial bed of coals via pallets (I have a bunch of slab wood), kindling, or smaller splits. (I like the notion mentioned above about keeping the air high and "sacrificing" this initial load/loads of wood to build up your coals as a cost of doing business.)

2) Once I've got nice coals/chunks, I'll add two or three medium sized splits. When these are charred, I'll start to back down the air in increments over 20 minutes or a half hour.

3) By this time the stove has been burning nice and hot for an hour or so, and has a good load of nicely charred splits in it. I'll close off the air intake entirely for a second, which seems to induce the secondary burn, and then open it just a touch which seems to increase the strength of the burn a little.

This has worked for me and my stove, but your mileage may vary. With good wood, I've been seeing my secondary burn last an hour and a half or so. I don't know if this is a long or short time, but it's working so far for me. Good luck!

RFF - you are on the right track. Yes to the gas stove burner flames. Also there will sometimes be slow wafting flames which come and go (think Northern Lights?) along the top of the stovebox. In my experience, the secondary burn only lasts for, say, a quarter or less of the entire burn cycle. Then it dies down, I think due to both diminished firebox temps and a lack of unburned particulates. I haven't tried a hearth.com search for "secondary burn" but I'll bet there's a lot of info on the topic, so you might want to give that a shot. I'm not an expert by any means, just somebody who made the transition from non-EPA to EPA burning a few years ago.