Hey guys, do you like to mix black locust with other woods when you burn it? Obviously black locust is one of the hottest burning woods, but it seems to me like it doesn't catch and produce very much flames, which results in a longer time getting the stove up to temperature. The black locust I am burning right now has been seasoned almost 2 years.
I've been mixing honey Locust 50/50 with some ash. This is new though since I just started burning Locust for the first time after two years of patiently waiting for it to season. Got about a cord seasoned and, sadly, no more in the pipeline at the moment. The Locust has been leaving some nice coals.
I'm getting there, but it will be two more seasons before I can really start feeling secure. Definitely not cold though.
I find you need a good coal bed from something like oak or good coaling wood 1st then add the locust.. I have some primo locust in my stack and all bark free!
My first year I burned 18 mo BL almost exclusively and it was kind of a PITA. Could've used another year of seasoning but still the stuff is like coal. Since then I use it as a mix in wood in established fires and almost never during start up.
i am mixing it this year half with oak because the manufacturer recomends 50% max of oak. no problems catching with downdraft.
Manufacturer recommends amount of oak?? Never heard of something like this! Don't think designing a stove this way is very smart or practical..
That's very strange. Never heard of anything like that before. You can probably overfire a stove easier with a full load of dry pine than a full load of oak.
Huh?.....wat stove you runnin'..sounds like b.s. to me....just think of what your burn times would be with a 100% load....
Locust for me really does not burn hotter "per se" than good oak...what i do find it coals much better which equates longer burn times for me.....50% of yor btus come from the coaling stage...
[QUOTE=".....50% of yor btus come from the coaling stage...[/QUOTE] Really? That's interesting. I know the first 2 years I used to waste a lot of wood coal by throwing fresh logs on way too soon and as a result coal could never really fully burn down & I'd discard a lot of it. On my 4th year now and burn much more efficiently altogether, but I didn't realize how much heat came from the coaling stage.
I read this somewhere it goes sumthin like this... 1..wood heats up to 212f evaporatin the remaining moisture in it..no heat given off yet.. 2.wood solids start to break down converting the fuel gasses somewhere around 550-575f 3. At around 575f to 1100f the main energy of the wood is released when fuel vapors containing 40% to 60% of the energy burn. 4. After burnin fuel vapors only charcoal remains burnin in excess of 1100f..
My experience has been that the coals while hot tend to give off lower BTU's partially due to slow burning combined with ash which allows burn but at a much slower rate.. Now if you were to crank the air and rake the coals you will experience higher BTU's at the expense of a faster burn rate.. I believe a cat stove would give a bit better temperature average at the coaling stage..
Yes i believe so Ray....when im home tendin the stove i do start to turn the air up a bit during coalin'
I think there are soo many varibles when it comes to output...no 2 are exactly the same....very interestin none the less
I agree Raybonz and jatoxico, black locust is not a very good "catching on fire" wood. I think I will continue to mix it as much as I can with more combustible woods (oak, ash, maple, etc).
