splitzilla - any issues with burning really big splits?

[jcims]

Hi Folks!

We're having a bit of a relief from the recent cold snap, so I figured I'd experiment with a big ol' split tonight to see how it makes it through the evening.

Any issues i should look out for? It's about 2" off the glass, and as you can see it's pretty close to the tubes in the center. Air is moving very well along the sides though, and it's cruising along at ~450° with the air only open 1/8-1/4".

 

[BrotherBart]

Got one just barely smaller and two helpers under its wings cruising in the 30 at the moment myself.

 

[BrowningBAR]

I just threw a huge split into the Vigilant. If I am down to a good pile of coals I can open up both doors and throw in the equivalent of a half a tree... sort of. Sometimes it catches really well, other times not so much. This time it caught and quickly rose to 650 degrees. I got it settled in at 475 right now. The room is at 78 degrees and I don't even have the fan on.

 

[pen]

I am not afraid of using them. I just like to make sure there is a good coal bed when I do it.

pen

 

[SolarAndWood]

That is one big ole split. What does it look like this morning?

 

[jcims]

That is one big ole split. What does it look like this morning?

In about 9 1/2 hrs it went from splitzilla to mini-me

Looks like it peaked at 550 sometime during the evening, but the air was too low for this small of fire, so it was down to about 225 and just kind of maintaining some good coals underneath. I flipped the split and tossed another one in, good flames about 5-10 seconds later.

Not bad at all!

 

[SolarAndWood]

Looks like success. How long since it was split?

 

[karri0n]

Something that large; the only issue would be that it takes longer to dry than others. Sounds like that one had plenty of time to get ready for the big day.


EDIT:

The only thing I would have done differently is filled up those four air spaces around the corners with something smaller :coolgrin:

 

[jcims]

Looks like success. How long since it was split?

About 8 minutes.

It was a big ol' round for about 2 1/2 years before that, but i'm sure the moisture content was still up there a bit. It didn't noticeably sizzle or steam, but I'm thinking that played a role in getting it through the evening.

 

[FireWalker]

Nice job!

Looks to me like you had room for more! When I'm splitting, I mix it up some.....rather than making all my splits triangles i'll take the big straight grained ones and split off 4 big flat slabs from the outer diameter leaving a big square core piece that gets set in the stack for exactly what you need on a cold night. This square piece technique would have filled the 20% free space you left unused.