...and they were a bit wetter than I had thought. If you put some wood in and it is smoking more than you would like, what are some strategies for producing the least amount of smoke? More air to heat it up as quickly as possible? I’m working with a tube stove if it makes a difference. I guess i’m not as careful with aging the little pieces as the full stacks, but I loaded full of chunks on top of some nice cherry and coals and it wasn’t really taking off. I usually open the door for a few minutes, then close it and keep the air open until it is rolling well enough I can crank the air down. Tonight I was playing with it. I have a timed setting for lighting fires where you push in a little lever and it’ll tick off for 20 min or so, letting in more air, but not as much as a door-ajar. For a few min when the secondaries were definitely not going and it was pretty smoky I pushed in the starting lever and when that didn’t help I throttled the air intake and whalah, secondaries for just a couple minutes before they petered out. Then I got a quick puff of smoke in my face when I opened the door without opening the air again, but once I did open the air it really flared up. It is rolling fine now with the intake all the way down. Upstairs thermostat reads 76. I’ll probably do another load of chunks before bed, baking in some time for getting it going well.
Burning wood that is only partially seasoned is tough. Here are a few tricks you could try. 1) keep the wood close to the outside of the stove so it dries a little more from the heat of the stove. Obviously far enough away that it’s safe. 2) split the wood smaller before putting it in the stove. 3) clean the chimney and stove pipes extra often. Depending how poorly seasoned the wood is, you may have to clean them every couple weeks. 4) burn pine, fir, etc lumber scraps or other wood that you have accessibility to that you know is seasoned. This will give a few extra weeks of even a couple months for your uglies to dry by the stove. Do not burn pressure treated wood though.
I bring in a tote of chuglies to sit by the stove for at least a week knowing that the bin I am taking out of is not totally dry. A good week at 85 Degrees usually does them well. Big uglies definitely sit by the stove for more than 2 weeks, because I only burn a few on the weekend for smaller non cook us out of the room fires.
