Reading Ash

[titanracer]

Burning Northeast pellets. Let me start by saying stove was cleaned yesterday before burning these pellets. Always clean stove when trialing a new pellet. No burn issues as far as flame, sharp tips with no tip blackness, plenty of air. Flames dancing quite nicely inside stove. Heat from stove is really good. What I'm trying to determine is reading the ash. Pellets are bright white in color when filling hopper. Dark colored ash after been burnt. Been burning now for almost 24 hours. No ash accumulating in burn pot, all being blown out of burn pot. No clunkers of any kind. Ash laying outside pot, seems to be coarse, not fluffy. I would say its heavy and some kind of thick. But not to the point where its not getting blown from pot, because pot is clean/clear. Not a lot of adjustments with stove, preset heat/blower levels. Do have draft control on incoming cold air intake tube inside stove, by a butterfly valve. Like I said, no burning issues of any kind, burning quite nicely. Just trying to read the ash on maybe why it seems really coarse. Maybe more draft air, wouldn't think so, ash is not accumulating in burn pot, it is ALL being blown clear. Maybe less air to keep ash in pot longer, to maybe burn more complete, don't know. All I can say, it's getting plenty of air to blow it out. Maybe cut back draft some to keep it in the pot, a little longer, more burning time. Do you think it is just the nature of pellets. Just curious what you guys would try. Let me add one thing, incase you didn't read my signature, it is a USSC AP5660L, as shown in my avatar.

 

[Profilebrewing]

In my limited experience, I've found that pellets that have additives, like to make them hold together I guess, have a coarse ash. All natural nice and fluffy. For me anyways.

 

[titanracer]

Follow up on earlier report! My earlier observations was on while stove was running. So I cleaned the stove after the 24 hour mark, here are my finds. Ash was coarse, but cleaned up nicer than a fluffy kind of ash. Normally fluffy ash and or fly ash, get all up thru the heat exchanger tubes & makes it more harder to get clean. This wasn't the case with this ash. A good brush with paint brush & a stiff welders kind of brush, and she was clean. I thought to myself, that wasn't to bad. Then moved onto burn area. Well what was said in earlier post about burn pot seems clear, well for the most part it was pretty clean, wasn't to much carbon, but there was one HE!! of a clunker in there. I have a rectangle shaped burn pot, about 2" wide by 6" long by about 4" deep. That clunker on clear bottom of burn pot was about 2" wide by 3" long by about 1-1/4" thick. It was really weird looking. It was like layered settlements on the 1-1/4" thickness. Bottom layer was 1/2" thick gray color as ash, middle layer was like 3/16" thick and was white in color and top layer was 1/2" thick gray color as ash again. I lifted the whole thing out in one piece. It was odd. Anyhow, the rest of stove cleaned up nicely. I must say tho, the heat off the pellets was better than average.

I have one question about the clunker, is there anything different that can be done to get rid of something like that, or is that just the nature to what is in the pellets. After all, they did seem to throw off good heat, stove did clean up nicer, but would require more frequent cleanings because of clunker, if clunker issue can not be solved.

 

[slvrblkk]

How's this for ya....Freedom Fuel.....23 ounce ash volume.....ash weight 2.40 ounce.......ash percentage .37%....but the biggest ash cake I've seen this season....