heyyo folks.
im on the second year burning, and typically, im starting from a cold stove in the early evening after work. ive adopted the top-down fire starting method and am enjoying the great results (thanks to the forum)!
now that it appears that the winter has at least started to appear consistently, im starting to burn all day/night on the weekends. my question is about reloading the stove.. im reloading at about 275-300 stovetop with many coals.. i brought them to the front and burned them down a bit and threw a couple larger and a couple med. sized logs. the question is, should i leave the air open until all of the logs have caught, or should i let the coals do the work and keep the air somewhat closed (maybe 1/2 way?) then slowly damper down from there. find if i leave the air open, the stove tends to peak around 700, which is a bit high, though only for a little before settling in the low 600s, but i wonder if im waitng too long to cut the air and burning too much wood? this time around (currently) there is a smallish grouping of slower flames in the middle, with some secondary combustion, but it looks as though not all the wood has caught, and the air is about 1/3 open., and the stove is still around 350-375 (according to my questionably trustworthy IR gun...).
am i right in assuming that if there is enough heat in the firebox to have secondary combustion, then i am burning cleanly? the first fires go very well, im just curious on the timing for the reloads and air supply...
ideally, id like to get a bit longer burn times out of the stove, but not at the risk of burning dirty...
thanks as always for any input!
im on the second year burning, and typically, im starting from a cold stove in the early evening after work. ive adopted the top-down fire starting method and am enjoying the great results (thanks to the forum)!
now that it appears that the winter has at least started to appear consistently, im starting to burn all day/night on the weekends. my question is about reloading the stove.. im reloading at about 275-300 stovetop with many coals.. i brought them to the front and burned them down a bit and threw a couple larger and a couple med. sized logs. the question is, should i leave the air open until all of the logs have caught, or should i let the coals do the work and keep the air somewhat closed (maybe 1/2 way?) then slowly damper down from there. find if i leave the air open, the stove tends to peak around 700, which is a bit high, though only for a little before settling in the low 600s, but i wonder if im waitng too long to cut the air and burning too much wood? this time around (currently) there is a smallish grouping of slower flames in the middle, with some secondary combustion, but it looks as though not all the wood has caught, and the air is about 1/3 open., and the stove is still around 350-375 (according to my questionably trustworthy IR gun...).
am i right in assuming that if there is enough heat in the firebox to have secondary combustion, then i am burning cleanly? the first fires go very well, im just curious on the timing for the reloads and air supply...
ideally, id like to get a bit longer burn times out of the stove, but not at the risk of burning dirty...
thanks as always for any input!