Smoke at coaling stage

[baseroom]

Burning my Isle Royale 24/7 these days.. I had cranked it up early and by late morning I was in the coaling stage. Went out to bring in the garbage, noticed smoke coming out of the chimney. I went in and opened the air intake so the coals burned hotter. Went out and all smoke was gone. Normal? Thanks.

 

[Highbeam]

I've had it happen with the NC30 non-cat. I believe the reason is that during the intial burn in of the wood with all of the flames, there is a ton of heat in the firebox to create a strong draft and suck in plenty of air to burn up the huge bloom of wood gasses. As this source of fuel dies down the draft weakens and there is insufficient fresh air entering the cooler box to burn up the emissions. The non-cats depend on a very hot firebox under the baffle to eat up the smoke so when the firebox cools for some reason, they are more likely to pollute.

 

[Squisher]

Yup, that makes sense to me Highbeam.

Op do you monitor your stovetop temps? With my stoves it seems when I get down to around 400 or less secondary combustion will cease and if your wood is still offgassing, as in not quite all really coals, I'll get some smoke. This is why I endeavour to burn hot. Right up to atleast 600 stovetop on reloads and settling in new loads. And honestly with my stoves, I aim for 700 if I'm wanting heat. Like I am today with -20c, -23 earlier this morning.

 

[baseroom]

Yup, that makes sense to me Highbeam.

Op do you monitor your stovetop temps? With my stoves it seems when I get down to around 400 or less secondary combustion will cease and if your wood is still offgassing, as in not quite all really coals, I'll get some smoke. This is why I endeavour to burn hot. Right up to atleast 600 stovetop on reloads and settling in new loads. And honestly with my stoves, I aim for 700 if I'm wanting heat. Like I am today with -20c, -23 earlier this morning.

Yep 400 is the magic temp here. Do you let in more air to keep the stove at 600? I will bring it to 600 shut the air down while keeping secondary combustion. Then as you say at around 400 secondaries slow down and stop. If I then let more air in it heats up some and the coals break down more quickly and it seems like I am extracting more heat and burning cleaner. I don't have a problem with this just want to listen to others experience.

 

[Highbeam]

Yep 400 is the magic temp here. Do you let in more air to keep the stove at 600? I will bring it to 600 shut the air down while keeping secondary combustion. Then as you say at around 400 secondaries slow down and stop. If I then let more air in it heats up some and the coals break down more quickly and it seems like I am extracting more heat and burning cleaner. I don't have a problem with this just want to listen to others experience.

I open up the draft a bit more as stove top temps fall to get max heat and to accelerate the coal burning.

 

[Squisher]

Yes Baseroom, But my stove is different so I don't know if it's the best comparison. Once I've ran my stove up on a reload most often to 600-700. I cut my air back sometimes incrementally as I'm getting there based on flue temp and how hot a reload I started off on, and on what the fire is doing in the box. And sometimes I end up just running it up super hot on my flue temps and letting the stove temps too just skyrocket and then I end up closing it right off, because I'm hitting the upper limits and in doing so my draft becomes super strong. If I do that I'll have to usually revisit the stove once in that burn cycle to bump my air up slightly from fully closed or I may risk having temps drop off to quickly and lose secondary combustion before the wood is truly just coals.

I end up being either turned right down on my air or more often than not, just bumped off of fully closed. Than my stove looks after itself and maintains clean combustion all through its cycle while dropping slowly from 700 stovetop, by the time it reaches below 400 I have true coals that aren't producing anything for smoke that I've seen.