Hi, Has anyone else noticed that it seems the higher percentage of softwood being burned in one's pellet stove that the flame contains more green, blue, and purple colors? I notice these colors down near the pellets/air interface where the fire originates. I understand that the these colors "further down" in the color spectrum are the hotter colors. I wonder if it the pitch/resins of the softwood that are producing the green, blue, purple colors. When I burn a hardwood, the flame is looks more orange, even a uniform orange. I think orange means cooler flame. (Is true with oxyacetylene torches.)
Greetings Orson, we've found the same w/ the softie pellets, and always try to start w/ a blue flame base in the burn pot when tuning a new pellet which means it's burning nice and hot in there. The different colors are cool to watch, only get them occasionally w/ the pellets here.. I've always thought the same, that it's the resin/lignin in the wood species, or possibly some bark, or a (pesticide) treated tree made it into the wood fiber mix.. Those would typically burn w/ a green flame tint. The hardwoods here also burn w/ a 'cooler' flame, but still put out a lot of heat - the secondary burn of the smoke, w/ hardwoods, can burn as hot, or hotter than some softies.. We have to keep air dialed up high for softie pellets, and air turned down a bit for hardwoods in the small stove here. When we burned the woodstove, it was fun to toss in a piece of Cedar wood every now and then - very cool flame colors w/ burning Cedar.
