Secondary burn question

[KYrob]

I had my first fire last night and now have a question. The insert I have has 4 burn tubes above the firebox. The fire I had last night was mainly kindling and two pieces of 1/4 split wood. After it was going good I shut the damper down to about half and the fire on the wood went out but the holes in each of the last 3 burntubes had blue flames coming out that looked like the burners on a gas heater. It was neat looking and lasted for maybe 30 minutes when a flame again started on the wood pieces. Is this the secondary burn I have read about? It was neat but kinda made me wonder if something was not right so I let it die down. Supposed to get cold later this week so I will post pics if it does it again. Also, I noticed that when this was happening, there was a lot of flames curling around the top fiber boards towards the flue. Is this normal also? I was wondering how hot the flue should get.

Thanks,
Rob

 

[Pagey]

Sounds like a brief, but successful and normal secondary burn. Good work.

 

[BrotherBart]

That was the Holy Grail of hearth.com wood burners. The magical secondary burn. A good thing, it is the smoke off of the wood burning up at the baffle.

Get it going with a full load of dry wood on a hot coal bed and you will learn how to bite your fingernails. :ahhh: Don't do that just yet.

 

[SlyFerret]

Yup, your stove was doing exactly what it should.

What stove do you have? What sort of temps were you seeing on the stove top?

-SF

 

[BrotherBart]

He has a Buck model 74.

Please put your stove in your sig line Rob so people reading your posts know what you are burning.

 

[firefighterjake]

You have experienced part of the Holy Trinity of Secondary Burning . . . the so-called Propane BBQ Blue Jets of Fire Secondary Burning. the other two parts of the Holy Trinity that may also be seen are the Northern Lights of Secondary Burning (intermittent flashes of flames that burst into flame above the wood and then disappear only to have another burst of flame appear a second later . . . this is typically seen when there is little to no flames showing on the actual wood) or you may see the Bowels of Hades Secondary Burn (lots of flames blowing out the top 1/3 of the firebox and the first time this happens you wonder if you shouldn't confess the fact that were watching Married with Children re-runs while your wife slept the other day.)

 

[summit]

with all the holy trinity talk, It should imply to you that it IS a religious experience: 2ndary non cat burns...