bark- what to do with it?

[pybyr]

Hello all-

I've been burning a lot of hard maple since I commissioned my gasifier a week and a half ago.

most of that maple shed its bark some time between chucking it in the basement and putting it in the firebox- so now I have a whole mess of maple bark all over the floor of that part of the cellar

I learned the other day that bark is NOT a good thing to include in starting a fire, unless one wants a _whole lot_ of smoke

I'm sure the bark does not have a lot of BTUs, simply because it is not very dense. but it's there, and if I don't burn it, then I need to gather it up and get it out someplace to let it decay

tonight, for curiosity's sake, and to get rid of some of it, I filled a paper grocery sack with it and stuffed the whole thing in the firebox once I'd gotten a good hot fire going. not sure on what it created for smoke, as it is dark out; my hope is that it burned relatively clean given the already-hot burn underway

what do the rest of y'all do with bark that has fallen off of the wood--- suggestions on how and when to burn it in a way that is effective and clean?

thanks

 

[HeatsTwice]

Hi,

Where I stack my wood, I pile it up so that it forms a rectangular pile 6 inches thick 10x10feet wide. I then stack my next years fire wood on it. This helps keep the wood from comming in contact with dirt and lets water flow under and away from the wood stack as the pile of bark is very porus.

 

[Ugly]

My first thought is... do you get any more smoke with a load of wood that has bark on it vs a load of wood without? If not then adding a bit of bark equal to the amount one would find on a normal load of "bark still attached wood" should make it a wash shouldn't it?...

To bark or not to bark.. let's ask my dog

Happy heating
Ugly

 

[Duetech]

I burn the bark. I just leave an area at the top of the loading chamber. Sweep up the bark and add it to the fire box. Clean, neat and btu's. But you are right it's not the stuff great kindling is made of.

 

[grainfedprairieboy]

Use it in your meat smoker. Maple bark will give you a bit sweeter of a flavour and darken the meat.

 

[flyingcow]

pybyr,
I was just thinking the same thing. I plan on doing the what cave is doing. Like he pointed out, put it on top and by the time the wood has settled down to the bottom, it should just vaporize it.

I also just fired up my unit about week and half ago. Seems like I'm burning more wood than I planned on, but it's been damn cold. When it's not pushing 35 to 40 below, it'll warm up to , maybe to 10 above, but then the wind blows. The night I fired it up it was about 15 below and the wind was still blowing. I've got it tweaked out about right. And Tarm seems to agree with the settings. I'm about -35 outside. I've used about 1/4 to a 1/3 of a cord, but I'm still in the early days of burning.
..
Sorry to high jack your thread, a little O.T.
..
Just fired up the unit and I'll go out in a little while and throw some bark on it.

 

[wantstoburnwood]

I find bark alright to put on top even before I light my boiler. But I was putting the chainsaw dust in and it caused some dandy back draft bangs. I keep my bark cleaned up and into the fire. Seems like in this weather I am using alot of wood too but it is really cold.

 

[Nofossil]

I'll chuck a paper bag half full of boiler room floor sweepings in on top of a good bed of coals with a couple of medium splits under it to reduce the amount that's in contact with the coals and reduce the rate of wood gas generation. Burns clean and fine. Produces more ash than wood does, though.

Hard maple? I'm really jealous now. This year my wood is well over 50% poplar and white pine. I've gone through pretty near 3 cords already.

 

[Fred61]

Go ahead, burn it. Throw it on a bed of coals, burns fine, won't last long! Over the past 39 years of burning wood, I absorbed somewhere that bark burns down into clinkers. Wood clinkers are pretty soft. Not like those rocks that came from coal.

 

[pybyr]

Hard maple? I'm really jealous now. This year my wood is well over 50% poplar and white pine. I've gone through pretty near 3 cords already.

thats OK NoFo- even though I am glad to have my system running, your system/ skills are plenty to keep me jealous even though I am fortunate to have access to some really decent wood to cut on family-owned land right across the road (ash, maple, hornbeam, beech, and red pine). This coming year I really need to get further ahead on the wood so that it can be stacked and drying much, much earlier in the year.

 

[pybyr]

Use it in your meat smoker. Maple bark will give you a bit sweeter of a flavour and darken the meat.

Thanks- I'll make a mental note of that for future use- don't have a meat smoker yet, and too many other projects to make or use one soon, but good to know.