Medicine smell from ash charcoal

[excessads]

Majority of our seasoned wood are ash and some oak and maple. Any of you ever experience charcoals smell kind of like isopropyl alcohol? We definitely pick that up before, and it's more definitely more pronounced tonight when I was reloading.

 

[ejn327]

I've been burning a bunch of ash, never had any medicinal smells.

 

[LocustPocust]

I've smelled that before as well while reloading. It seems to be strongest when you reload very soon after the wood stops burning and coals. To me it smells like magic markers. I've also smelled it before at a friend's house so it's just not my stove. What it is I don't know but it seems like a maple/boxelder thing.

 

[XJcacher]

Methanol used to be made from wood so any unburned wood {charcoal?} may be giving off a small amount of methanol.

 

[Jeffm1]

I've smelled that before as well while reloading. It seems to be strongest when you reload very soon after the wood stops burning and coals....

That seems to be the point I usually pick up the strongest smells, good or bad. Sometimes when I burn slightly punky or beetle kill wood that had beetle burrows in it I pick up an odor that is hard to explain other than stink...I don't know if I would call it a medicinal smell though. But I might be able to see how someone else would. From observing the burrows the insects seem to chew through the wood and crap out their rear end into the burrow they just made filling and plugging it up with a compacted dust like material. I assume this material also contains the remnants of the bug's digestive enzymes which is what I assume causes the funky odor when burned. When I burn wood that has no punk or beetle burrows I don't smell the funky odor.

 

[DodgyNomad]

Methanol used to be made from wood so any unburned wood {charcoal?} may be giving off a small amount of methanol.

That's a good thought. I burn a lot of ash, but never noticed the smell. I have a 25 ft., straight up flue, so I don't get any smoke or smell, so I might have missed it.

 

[spirilis]

Is it similar to what you might smell coming off a really hot burning charcoal grill fire? I recall reading somewhere that a few ketones are produced by really hot charcoal combustion and it makes a certain smell...

 

[excessads]

Is it similar to what you might smell coming off a really hot burning charcoal grill fire? I recall reading somewhere that a few ketones are produced by really hot charcoal combustion and it makes a certain smell...

In that environment, if I smell alcohols, I won't be surprised if they were ketones, just a carbon n few hydrogens away....

 

[English BoB]

Pignut smells like "oinkment"

bob

 

[Paulywalnut]

Burning beetles?

 

[St. Coemgen]

experience charcoals smell kind of like isopropyl alcohol?

There are many volatile organic (and aromatic) compounds released when burning wood. But if you smell anything significant, as described, you probably are producing too many such hydrocarbons during combustion, probably due to incomplete combustion. Try turning up the air a bit to improve combustion.