I'm trying to get a sense for how well my princess (pe32) is operating, as well as if I'm operating it well, as the smoke output at the top of the flue seems higher than I would expect at times.
On a cold start, with pine measured at 17% MC, starting in the way the manual describes, once I fill the firebox and have shut the door the top of the flue looks exactly like an old pre-EPA stove I'm used to (which I would expect). Once the cat gets into active range and I turn off the bypass, I can almost immediately hear the cat kick into gear (sounds of expanding metal) and the cat thermometer will steadily rise. Watching from the outside, I can't see any immediate change in smoke from the flue, but over the course of the next 10-15 minutes it will steadily decrease to maybe 1/3 of the smoke output it had when I initially enabled the cat. It is definitely not just water vapor, and it is easily discernable if someone were looking at it, though it is certainly way less than what I would see if it were an old pre-EPA stove at the same point in a burn cycle. This 10-15 minute point after engaging the cat is also around when the cat thermometer gets to 85-90% of max temp. At this point my air control/thermostat is still wide open and the firebox is also a raging inferno, with the entirety of every log in a full firebox engulfed.
From here, if I turn down the air, the smoke out the flue goes down to what I consider a pretty low level, you can only see it if you are looking for it, though I do believe I'm seeing more than just water vapor. The cat temperature may settle back to about 75% (2-3 o'clock) at this point, but as long as I keep the air high enough to keep the coals active, it will stay around 50-75% until the firebox has burned down to a bed of coals. If I instead leave it up at wide open full air, I continue to see that modest smoke output slowly diminish over the next 30-60 minutes, at which point the smoke from the top of the flue would be similar to a turned down air setting, but I would attribute that more to the most volatile portion of the fire cycle being over (and the cat would have been in the 90-100% temperature range the whole time).
A hot reload is essentially the same; if I reload at around the ideal point with a healthy bed of coals and the cat about 20% above the inactive zone, I can stuff the firebox, close the door, engage the cat, and within a minute or two I'll get the sound of expanding metal and the cat will climb steadily from 20% up to 85-90% in about 10-15 minutes. If I go outside to watch from the moment I engage the cat on this type of reload, it will initially be pouring smoke like a pre-EPA and just like I described in the cold start, slowly and steadily decrease in unison with the cat approaching 90%, but smoke will still be easily visible until I turn down the air, or after 30-60 minutes of burning at full air.
Is this normal and appropriate behavior? While I wasn't expecting zero smoke all the time, my understanding was that if the cat was in the active range, engaging it would have a pretty immediate and significant impact on smoke output, which is not what I'm seeing. It feels to me as an inexperienced operator of this type of stove, that the cat can't keep up with the smoke output the firebox is creating in these situations.
I would also note, I bought the stove used from a BK dealer, who said it was a return after less than half a season of use. I have pulled off the shielding plate and the catalyst shows no signs of cracking or clogging/plugging. All of the gaskets also look to be in good shape as well, though I haven't done a formal test on them..