Production Woodstock IS

I'm not saying to do this but ... When I picked up the Beta Ideal Steel from Tom at the DC Woodstove Challenge, he was showing me the Beta stove they had burning in the tent on the Mall. I asked him about how clean it burns and he grabbed a pair of stove gloves and lifted the cook top up several inched to show us the cat burning away below. No smoke escaped, primarily because the cat was eating all of it, and it just continued chugging along and drafting up the flue.

I never did that in my house with the Beta but I doubt it would do anything.

 

I've lifted my stove lid 2x as the cat was burning. Both times the radiator had a slight glow to it and there was no smoke like Brian mentioned. The bad part was, the heat that came out felt similar to starting a propane grill and the flame rushes out and you singe your eyebrows, that hot.

 

I'm getting a mental picture...

 

Whoa! My Ideal Steel is doing something that is either really cool or really scary depending on what is happening. I loaded her full up at 5:00 AM with well seasoned white oak. Got the temps up, engaged the cat and it was cruising at 600 stove-front with the firebox dark and the air control set on notch 4. I happened to glance over at the stove and saw it go from pitch dark to an eruption of flames all through the firebox, then it went dark again. It's been doing the dark/eruption thing every two minutes for about the last half hour, with no secondary flames present in between the eruptions. Is this really cool or really scary?

 

I found it cool, and my wife found it scary. With the PH this is more explosive, often lifting the top stone and allowing the smoke out, and she was unimpressed with that, so when we saw it with the IS beta, it brought along those memories. With the IS, it was much less explosive - more like a soft flaring, and it was not a regular occurrence. A window on a woodstove has to be one of the coolest advances in their evolution!

 

I think it's cool. When it shutters like that and my wife catches it from the corner of her eye, she thinks it's scary.
It doesn't happen all the time, the stove set at the right air setting, maybe the even the draft comes into play and then it sputters like an old dired lawn mower.

 

Yep I've seen that a few times. It really catches you when your away from the stove and hear it. Then you go look at it and all looks normal. So you walk away and hear whuumm!

 

That stove is pegged! I would consider that an overfire.... Might want to keep it out of the red zone. I have been up to the edge of the red zone with mine after reloading on deep coal bed, had to open the cat and really increase air flow through the stove to cool it down, counter intuitive, but it worked. My flue temp at 650 stove front was 500. Tremendous increase in heat output very fast.

 

This isn't exactly the same as you describe but I think it illustrates it.



We saw the type of activity you described occasionally with the Beta stove and just enjoyed the show.

 

In my opinion there is a huge difference between running at those temps and hitting them before backing it down. That said...I wouldn't want to go much warmer on my stove- even though that was my routine on the last one!

 

With this stove I would not judge it an overfire based only on the temp on that part of the stove, which is simply registering heat coming off the cat. That temp is limited to a very small area on the front of the stove above the door and using an IR thermometer you see a 100 to 150 degree difference between that one small spot and anywhere else on the front or top of the stove. It is a good way to judge whether the cat is active but not a good indicator of an overfire.

 

Agreed. Big difference between burning a Beta you know is going back to the factory, and running your own production model for years of warmth and enjoyment.

 

Also, all our stove top thermometers read a lot higher on that spot than the IR thermometer. I don't know why but at higher temps our stove top thermometers read much higher than the IR.

 

This is cruising around 650 front of cat. 550 stovetop. I also agree that the stovetop thermometers are not accurate. I simply use them as a guide. If I am worried about over fire I get out the infrared and check. It always seems to be within limits.

 

Mine does it all the time. The only downside is that on occasion it will create a back puff out the air intake. The solution is to open the air a bit more. This happens when it hits that sweet spot where the wood is off gassing but there is no flame so the gasses build up and eventually ignite.

 

Yes, I think the radiator is a sacrificial part to absorb the greatest amount of abuse inside the stove. It is large and pretty heavy but as it is only a mild steel stamping with folded ends, it should be inexpensive enough so it is not a big deal to replace now and then. Even though it is deteriorating, it should last many years before it needs replacement just because it is so thick.

I originally thought the stove would be far more efficient without the radiator in place but in actual practice, it seems extremely efficient, even with the radiator 'in the way'. The stove probably would be even more efficient without the radiator still but I would be wary of warping the top plate on the stove and that would cause serious air leaks.

Brian

 

Mine looks very similar. Maybe not quite as bad. Some blistering on top with more blistering on the underside. I just figured it was normal from the intense heat of the cat. The highest stove top temp I've ever seen was 525. The highest stove front temp I've seen is 800.
These are the spots where I'm monitoring my temps.

 

Our beta had a right-side bias to the airflow, and our temps ran higher on the right side. Back at the top vent location, our stove was 50 to 100 degrees hotter on the right side, where your steamer is. We had quite a lot of the blistering/scaling going on, too. That plate absorbs a lot of abuse - I would not consider running without it.

 

I'll have to check out the right side temps and see how they compare. Right now with the thermos where they are in the picture, the stove is cruising along about and hour after reload. Temps are...stove pipe 280, stove top 475, and stove front 680.

 

Thats exactly what they do Brian, it's cool to watch but some people wonder if it's supposed to be doing that.