Adding firewood too fast? Cold fire/hearth

[david s]

Kim,
I have also experienced the same problem that you have described exactly, a couple of times with mine. Both times were when I was keen to get a big fire going in a hurry, overloaded the chamber with fuel and had lots of black, unburnt wood, mostly in the back of the oven. My oven is small and it is easy to overload. What is happening is that too much oven volume is taken up by the wood and also oxygen can't easily get through. This results in a reducing atmosphere ( fuel excess, oxygen starved) and does not produce a hot fire, exactly the opposite of what you are trying to achieve. The remedy is to let your oven take it's time and put in LESS fuel than you think, particularly at early stages. It is far kinder to your refractory materials to heat slowly anyway, so relax and open another beer and start your fire earlier.