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Re: Starting your fire
It does not matter weather or not the wood is green or air dried, I am simply saying, in my somewhat experienced opinion, that trying to get a jump on the next fireing by "drying" the wood in a hot, recently fired and baked in bread
oven is not only a false economy, but can be dangerous, and that saturating the interior of an oven, and chimney with creosote from charring firewood, that is also absorbed by the firebrick, does no good.
I have no idea of the circumstances of that poster that dries wood in their oven, they did not say.
I am not saying that a top down burn reduces outgassing. We want outgassing since that IS how wood burns.
Much of the gasses from wood combustion do not burn properly in a oven/firebox that is not hot enough yet
I am theorizing that the wood outgasses will ignite much more fully when the wood is well heated somewhat gradually, as opposed to wood just loaded (at a core temp somewhere between room temp and whatever the temp is of the wood that is just brought in from outside) and subjected to a rush of flame from paper and kindling.
Anyway, the proof is in the pudding. It works for me, I feel good about it, and most of the other members of our Masonry Heater Assn agree and teach it to their clients.
But don't just take my word for it, try it and see for yourself. You can always go back to your own favorite method.
The customer I spoke of in my post is a commercial breadbaker, and has a burn in his oven every day, and very often would dry wood more fully regardless of if the wood is green or air dried.
They do not bake their firewood in the bread oven any longer, just their bread.
It does not matter weather or not the wood is green or air dried, I am simply saying, in my somewhat experienced opinion, that trying to get a jump on the next fireing by "drying" the wood in a hot, recently fired and baked in bread
oven is not only a false economy, but can be dangerous, and that saturating the interior of an oven, and chimney with creosote from charring firewood, that is also absorbed by the firebrick, does no good.
I have no idea of the circumstances of that poster that dries wood in their oven, they did not say.
I am not saying that a top down burn reduces outgassing. We want outgassing since that IS how wood burns.
Much of the gasses from wood combustion do not burn properly in a oven/firebox that is not hot enough yet
I am theorizing that the wood outgasses will ignite much more fully when the wood is well heated somewhat gradually, as opposed to wood just loaded (at a core temp somewhere between room temp and whatever the temp is of the wood that is just brought in from outside) and subjected to a rush of flame from paper and kindling.
Anyway, the proof is in the pudding. It works for me, I feel good about it, and most of the other members of our Masonry Heater Assn agree and teach it to their clients.
But don't just take my word for it, try it and see for yourself. You can always go back to your own favorite method.
The customer I spoke of in my post is a commercial breadbaker, and has a burn in his oven every day, and very often would dry wood more fully regardless of if the wood is green or air dried.
They do not bake their firewood in the bread oven any longer, just their bread.
You can put them under a pile of split logs and within two or three minutes, the logs are burning! I use two under the pile but I'm sure you could get away with using only one towards the middle of the log stack. I use one of those candle lighters to get under the stack to light them. (see photo)
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