2018-19 Blaze King Performance Thread Part 2 (Everything BK)

I just loaded the princess to the gills with a load of 4yr seasoned Red and White Oak...I am going to do a comparison of the BK and Condar

My bk cat probe thermometer has never been past the 3:00 point to my knowledge. Usually peaks between 12:00 and 2

Sorry...in Minnesota this week and heat is needed!

All....we have all seen cats are hyper active when new. Cat glowing/non glowing, sun yellow/huggar orange/ passion purple have no bearing on anything.

Sit back, appreciate the heat, have a drink, hug the grandkids and get a good night's sleep. Don't worry...it's all good.

I brought the stove up to my "normal" cruise range of 1100 on the Condar...I then swapped in the BK cat probe and let it stabilize...what does this mean? Not much...it just means that I have a number reference with the Condar is all..

BKVP said:

Sorry...in Minnesota this week and heat is needed!

All....we have all seen cats are hyper active when new. Cat glowing/non glowing, sun yellow/huggar orange/ passion purple have no bearing on anything.

Sit back, appreciate the heat, have a drink, hug the grandkids and get a good night's sleep. Don't worry...it's all good.

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Where in Minnesota? Not sure your timing was great to be here, or maybe perfect.

BKVP said:

...have a drink...

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The cold must be getting to your brain, you're usually more specific.

lsucet said:

I don't think that cat is that bright to keep the probe up there.

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I can still see the cells; That's not very bright.

Woody Stover said:

I can still see the cells; That's not very bright.

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Exactly. But sometimes can go crazy like me.
Well a load of just elm for the night.

lsucet said:

a load of just elm for the night.

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Most of the Elm we see here is Slippery (Red) Elm. Good stuff, BTU between Black Cherry and White Ash. No punky sapwood like Oak or Cherry has, and a pretty pink-red hue. I don't have much right now..

Tar12 said:

I brought the stove up to my "normal" cruise range of 1100 on the Condar...I then swapped in the BK cat probe and let it stabilize...what does this mean? Not much...it just means that I have a number reference with the Condar is all..

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I hope you were wearing gloves! Tougher than me if you could swap those cat meters bare handed.

chemie said:

How about the cost of your elegant woodshed?
It doesn’t count?
Maybe not 100 K but I think you are at least half way there.

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Forgot about that expense..add another 2g to the tab

Highbeam said:

I hope you were wearing gloves! Tougher than me if you could swap those cat meters bare handed.

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It was a very quick gloved operation...

Woody Stover said:

Most of the Elm we see here is Slippery (Red) Elm. Good stuff, BTU between Black Cherry and White Ash. No punky sapwood like Oak or Cherry has, and a pretty pink-red hue. I don't have much right now..

View attachment 239503 View attachment 239504 View attachment 239505 View attachment 239506

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Its good stuff...I like cruising the field edges on the farms I cut on looking for it..easy to spot and cut...a new farm I acquired is loaded with it..

Mnpellet said:

Where in Minnesota? Not sure your timing was great to be here, or maybe perfect.

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Bemidji. Headed south shortly...can't wait to go to Fairbanks where it's warmer..

Woody Stover said:

Hmmm, maybe the thermostat does come into play, differently with different types of wood. If the stove cools, the thermo opens causing more wood to gas, then cat gorges on smoke and gets hot. Eventually the stove and thermo heat up to the point where the thermo cuts the air again. This effect might be more pronounced when you are burning softer woods which off-gas faster when the air is increased.
I was just getting ready to mention this. On the Buck 91, I developed a pretty good eye for gauging how hot the cat was burning. When the probe pushed 1800, the cat was glowing bright orange, starting to approach yellow, like this little guy.
The probe tip on the Buck came over the front edge of the cat just a bit, and was maybe 5/8" above the face of the cat. That's about perfect I think. I try for 1/2-3/4" away from the face. The Buck is a 7" probe. Now on the Woodstocks, the cat probe doesn't work, even though the probe is only an inch longer, 8". I think this may be because the probe comes in from the back, instead of the front as in the Buck 91. I'm guessing the air flow near the flue exit sucks the cat heat away from the probe shaft before it can make it to the probe spring and dial. So the Ws probe essentially measures the temp around the rear flue exit in my setup. I use it, but it pretty much mirrors the pipe thermo most of the time, which I have lying on the stainless tee snout, about 5" behind the rear flue collar. I would have to drill through the top stone and cat heat shield to put a short probe directly above the cat.
Is that Yellow Birch? That stuff is supposed to be about like White Ash..med/high output.

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Nope - white birch betula papyrifera

lsucet said:

You know, many that burn 90% of the time on low do a hot burn once awhile for an hour or so. For sure the cat will peg under those conditions. Sometimes I run the fans for 5 minutes or so or just let it be. The fans does not cool the cat, just the stove top and trick the probe.
Overdraft can cause that too. I have the original cats and one is since late 2015/16 winter. I feel they still lighting off fine and working correctly. Never have to give them a bath or pull them out yet. Just vacuum the front and the back when I do chimney cleaning.
I don't think she is doing nothing wrong. It is okay to cut it down if is getting there. That is plenty of heat. Lol

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I have never pegged my cat probe - not even once. The highest it goes (fairly consistently on a fresh load) is just a tick above the 2/3 mark in the active zone. Perhaps it’s the wood species i burn.

Please remember my post sometime ago....the cat therms are not highly engineered products with a great deal of REPEATABLE accuracy. They are intended to give just a basic reference to catalyst activity.

If you need more repeatable accuracy, there are products that can provide that value....for more money.

Amen

shoot-straight said:

i really really like pine and other softwoods in my BK- and im in oak country. as to the same effort for both, i say no way. i can split poplar, pine and others super super fast with my maul. stringy white oak? not so much. you also can pretty much get the wood for free, as most folks think that its not burnable. i just got a pickup truck load of pine cutoffs 6"x4"x8" for nothing. they are in the woodshed now and will be 2020-21 wood. love me some cutoff wood from the sawmill.

and yes to throwing away btus with the coaling issue that can come with using oak and the like.

all that said, for overnight burns in really cold temps i do pull my best oak out. it does burn a bit longer.

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Ditto on the softwoods. This is my first season burning (mostly) oak. Quite the difference from Cottonwood and other softwoods that I burned almost exclusively over the last 3 seasons. (we had about 70 large cottonwoods taken down in 2015 and I kept a nice pile of trunks from that harvest) The oak will certainly put out the heat...but gone are the days of running super low on the dial like I can with the cottonwood. No biggie...just different. For sure...if you need BIG heat fast...head for the softwoods. The oak is nice for longer burns.... but if it's super cold and you want that kinda heat you get from a smoke dragon...this cottonwood will fill the bill....as it will lcrank out some crazy hot heat in my house stove on pretty much any setting above 2'oclock on the dial... wheras the oak...with my set up anyway...(only a 12 ft stack) takes a setting of 4 or higher for the same heat output/effect. (aka...the open the window effect) Freaks me out to run these stoves that hot....and I get what others (nay-)say that if you are burning that hot...you are likely burning as much wood as a tube stove/etc. Less emissions....but still goin through the wood like the old smoke dragon days.....

What I really noticed with the oak was how hard it is on chains. Wow. Compared to the cotties or the pine...well...it makes me glad I have a chain sharpener, for sure. You definitely don't head out to cut with only a chain or two in tow. Here on my property there is pine, spruce, gambel oak, juniper/cedar, maple and alder (bushes...but still can get 3-4inches in diameter) and cottonwood. (Riparian environment). We cut and burn whatever is standing dead.....and this year I cleaned up a few areas and am burning smaller 2-3" stuff mixed with large, unsplit rounds (as big as will fit in the door) in the garage stove. It's amazing to get such great heat from such junky wood. If I didn't have the BK(s)...I wouldn't mess with any of it.

Be well all....

MissMac said:

I have never pegged my cat probe - not even once. The highest it goes (fairly consistently on a fresh load) is just a tick above the 2/3 mark in the active zone. Perhaps it’s the wood species i burn.

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With my BK probe it flat pegs each and every time regardless of what is in the stove...on the other hand with the Condar it never pegs...

Tar12 said:

With my BK probe it flat pegs each and every time regardless of what is in the stove...on the other hand with the Condar it never pegs...

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Makes it more useful I find. Plus, the numbers.

Ok...Hibbing MN! Going to be -35F! Who knows with wind chill. Looking forward to Indiana next week!

Tar12 said:

With my BK probe it flat pegs each and every time regardless of what is in the stove...on the other hand with the Condar it never pegs...

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How old is the stove and how many hours o burn time do you have on it? Mine would peg if I left it wide open for too long when it was new, but now after 4 years burning 6 - 7 months 10 - 12 hours a day I would really have to screw up to get mine about 75%.

If you head to I falls tomorrow I’ll buy you lunch.

BKVP said:

Ok...Hibbing MN! Going to be -35F! Who knows with wind chill. Looking forward to Indiana next week!

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In our AF25 i never saw it pegged. The highest it gets close to mid active range even when I run it at the highest setting for both tstat and fan with well seasoned oak.