Fluffy soot??

[suprz]

I was cleaning out my stove last night, and when I took off the top of my stove there was very fine fluffy soot. It looked like cobwebs made of black ash.?? I have looked in my chimney and there isnt any in there, but I'm pretty sure the stove pipe from the stove to the insulated through wall pipe probably has some too. ( have to take that off when the brush gets here. If you touch them they crumble to ash so they weren't webs.... Just found it odd, and figured I would ask the experts what would cause that to happen

 

[Jags]

Fluffy soot is the common stuff, unless it is a "popcorn" type texture.
Fluffy "ash" type stuff is what you want to see if you see anything at all. Popcorn means that you had a flame up. And the shiny or gooey stuff is the bad stuff. Black and shiny or black and gooey is creosote. That is the stuff that is the fuel in a flue fire.