Fire build from the back?

[baseroom]

I have a quad Isle Royale which I love. Presently idling happily away with a mix of Ash and soft maple. Burned wood my whole life though this is the second year on the IR.......my first stove with baffles. As I was gazing at the secondaries blazing away last night I was thinking about where to focus the fire in the stove when the temps are as "temperate" as they are now. In the dead of winter it is no issue as I pack the stove tightly. But in these days it seems building with less wood should all be built as far back as possible. My thought is that the flames toward front of the stoves miss heating the baffles and shoot straight up and around them. If I build mostly in the back to middle the flames hit the baffles directly and get the secondaries going faster.......thoughts?

 

[kennyp2339]

I think I read some where that if you are doing partial loads its better to make the fire more towards the front of the fire box, possibly burns hotter due to the air wash in front of the stove?

 

[Nick Mystic]

Good question. Why not do a little experimenting and let us know what you discover. Try to keep your loads evenly matched and take multiple temperature readings from various spots on the stove during the stages of burning.

 

[begreen]

It depends on the stove design. Most steel and some cast iron stoves have both the airwash air and boost air coming from the front. The Isle Royale has a start up air supply which comes from the back. If you are using this option then the fire will get hot more equally across the bottom of the center of firebox. If one builds the base of the fire N/S in the Tunnel of Love™ configuration than there is a nice hot front-to-back core of flame that develops very quickly with dry wood. That's the way we start our fires. Our fastest start to secondaries time this season has been 9 minutes due to the exceptionally dry wood we are burning.

 

[baseroom]

Good point. At this time of year I do experiment a bit........smaller chunks......north south etc. It does make a difference. I should monitor more closely which way heats up quicker.......to often I get caught up in staring at it though

 

[jatoxico]

I have been experimenting with exactly what you're suggesting for two reasons. One is for the reason you mentioned, flames directly in front do not hit or have very little residence time across the baffle and the burn tubes before exiting. At least in theory that would give less heat and a dirtier burn.

The second is that, a fire started or concentrated in the front of my shallow fire box is burned down by the dog house. That air on the hot coals acts like a constant bellows on the fire, burrowing a hole right through the front wood and all the way to the back of the box, torching the whole load front to back.

When I concentrate the coals to the back and position a split in front of the dog house, that air is diffused because it has to make its way over and around before it feeds the fire at the back and I end up with better control and (I think) a longer burn. Due to the shallow box true N/S loading is not really an option so I'm also playing around with standing the back row of splits up (angled to the front) instead of laying them down E/W.

With a large split laid E/W in front of the dog house I load the back row with standing splits then another E/W on top the big one in front. This provided a kind of N/S burn with that back row that was cool to watch. The fire from the back row had a lot of time on the baffles. The front row remained intact for a couple hours before becoming involved.

Also less chance of stuff falling against the door which is always a problem with full E/W loads. Gonna play with that more to see if I can reproduce it. The down side is it takes more time to get the fire restarted than when you build the fire in front.

 

[begreen]

Have you tried laying down a couple short, small splits N/S under the E/W wood? That's how I would load the shallow Castine for very fast starts.

 

[jatoxico]

Have you tried laying down a couple short, small splits N/S under the E/W wood? That's how I would load the shallow Castine for very fast starts.

Me?

 

[begreen]

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Yes.

 

[jatoxico]

You must be, I'm the only one here...

As far as small wood N/S with E/W over, the ans is yes. In fact I crib all the time especially at start-up. If my wood is too long for a straight N/S I'll angle it SW/NE if I have to so I can get that airy fire and fast secondaries

What sparked me to chime in about the OP's post was how a front-centric () fire tends to miss the baffles which happens to me. In addition I first read here how many folks rake coals forward to get a controlled "cigar" burn. But in my case I find raking the coals forward in front of the dog house air causes any wood there to burn right up, the flames miss the tubes, then the dog house air blow torches its way through the load all the way to the back and soon the whole load is involved. High peak temp, concern about over-fire and short burn time.

Tried raking coals to the front but to each side (away from dog house in center) with little change. Putting coals to the back and laying a split E/W caused long delay in re-light and smouldering. Eventually got going OK but the flames were directed to the front and the back of that split setting off the front splits any way. Result, better but still fast burn down.

I can fit a little longer split standing than I can N/S. The standing splits at the back lit-off quicker than an E/W and burned thoroughly. The flames were directed straight up to the mid-back of the fire box. This gave lots of time for the flames to hit the all 3 tubes and run along the baffle. It also took much longer for the front splits to become involved since little flame is directed at them. Have seen smaller European stoves where the wood is loaded in a standing orientation. That placement doesn't fight the natural tendency of the flames to want to rise and wood burns well even with just one or two splits.