How much smoke from your chimney?

Have my sister in law and family staying with us for Christmas so have been starting my "overnight" burn a lot earlier in the evening so I'm not waking the kids up when I'm down making adjustments, etc.

Got it tuned in after about an hour with air turned down to about 1/8 open, pretty good secondaries and stovetop around 600-650. Been about 3.5 hours now, no more flames and I'm getting a bit of smoke from the chimney.

Short of setting my alarm to wake up and turn the air up in 3.5 hours, I guess I should be leaving the air further open on my final adjustment? Or does anyone else get a bit of smoke coming out too when it gets to this stage?

Get the same issue here on occasion. Find the logs at the back of the firebox tend to smolder a bit. I just pull the logs forward onto the coals in the front and they get going without opening the air further. Still experimenting with how I am going to address this.

I think it is normal to have this as the fire burns down. Unless you are getting a lot of smoke or bothering the neighbors with it I do not believe it is a big concern as most of the creo and bad stuff has burned off by this point and the smoke should not be creating much build up in the chimney. Others may come on here and correct me as I am no expert but if you have had 3+ hrs of 600+ temps with good secondary burn the bad stuff is pretty much gone by the time those back logs in an E/W burn begin to smolder a bit.

For the record I can see where at this stage the Cat becomes the Cats Meow but I do not have the benefit of a cat stove.

I have a neighbor very close by, so I try to be as considerate as possible with smoke during all stages of the burn cycle. To minimize smoke at the end, I find that putting a piece of bark or kindling vertically on the back wall of the woodstove will keep the back logs away from the firebrick so that air can get around them and burn them more completely. That prevents smoke at the end of a burn cycle.

I get a little smoke just as the OP burnt03 says. To reduce or eliminate the smoke I set my air control higher than I need for the early burn on order to have more air for the late stages of the burn.I'll have to try the trick that DBoon posted.

That is how i see it same here.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Nice to know that most of the creosote forming stuff is probably gone already and that's a good point about others with the thick smoke pouring out all the time

I'm loading NS and it's usually the 2 big splits on either wall that I think are a little slower in burning.

And there is the advantage of a cat stove. Burns that smoke, hence the slightly improved efficiency and heat output. Never see anything coming from my chimney. If on average the efficiency of a cat stove is about 9% more than a secondary burn stove, you're probably putting out up to 25% more smoke than a cat ? (63 % efficiency= 37 % lost, 72% efficiency = 28% lost , 28 = 3/4 of 37). Or, is the proper math 9 % more efficient = 9/63 =1/7 = 14%? And probably only a small portion of that smoke is put out at this stage of the burn. Anyway, compared to non-EPA stoves, you're not putting out a great deal of smoke. The idea of putting a spacer on the back wall sounds great - a simple, worthwhile remedy even if it were even part way effective. Wonder if and how much that simple step improves efficiency?

Is it smoke or steam???

From my reading here, steam dissipates fairly quickly, while smoke will linger and hang around.

I only get smoke when reloading................just until the flue temps come back up.

I get the most smoke from my englander at any stage of the burn,less from my Country Hearth 2000 and none from my Harman once its up to temp.

I get the most smoke just after refueling-when the fresh wood is sitting on coals. Once the stove is hot enough and I engage the cat-I don't see anything, no smoke at all. Even towards the end of the burn when I would think the cat is no longer engaged I still don't see any smoke.