A few photos of smokey fire Firing Your Oven Discuss A few photos of smokey fire in the Oven Management forums; Hi all, This post is nothing to do with the top-down method to reduce the incidence of smoke, but rather ...

[Puy de Dome]

Hi all,

This post is nothing to do with the top-down method to reduce the incidence of smoke, but rather to do with me perhaps not using seasoned wood.

I bought my current supply from a nice chap out in the country a couple of months ago. He said that the wood was seasoned. I could tell for myself that the wood was not green, and it felt 'light' considering the size.

But if you see the photos I have attached, you can see how much smoke was being produced. In fact, this was my second BIG fire, and cooked some great pizza last night.

To illustrate the question further, when I had finished cooking last night, I put a bunch of logs into the oven, because I had read here that this would dry them out further.

So this morning I made another little fire in the oven and put on the dried-out-further-in-the-oven logs and then hardly any more smoke!

Perhaps I have answered my own query? Extremely dried out and pre-heated logs = rapid combustion and the minimum of smoke?







And that's the neighbour's house in the photo.



P de D

[mpjfitz]

Hello

I'm in the UK as well. We tend to have our houses a lot closer to each other than the USA or Oz. So getting the smoke-free(ish) fire is essential eh?

I was wondering if you ever resolved your problem?

Mick

[Puy de Dome]

Hi, at the last firing, not long ago, I did get a pretty much smoke-free burn.

Not completely, of course, but pretty good.

What was this down to? Im not sure... I tried to avoid putting wood with bark on it in the fire, and AFAIK, the wood was very, very well seasoned wood, and hard wood at that.

My starter fire was made from small kindling, a few fire lighters and that was it.

As you can see, I am pretty close to the neighbours, but in fact the risk lies in the other direction where Mr and Mrs Stroppy live, and the wind goes in that direction much of the time.

[mpjfitz]

Thanks for the quick reply. I also have a 'Stroppy' family close by

They waited for my first fire! which was mainly paper and it did kick out smoke. Unfortunately for me another family was having a large garden fire at the same time! So they reported it to the environment people at the council. It did back-fire on them. When environment guy came to visit it was blazing away with hardly any smoke. I was using off-cuts (mainly pine) from several years of DIY. It burned fast with little smoke. He was very impressed :-)

However, all my DIY off-cuts are gone now and I need to get some wood. I've 'GOT' to get it right!!! I really don't know where to start, but I'm researching big-time.

Mick

[david s]

Bake a few loaves of bread and give them one. If your oven is new or the wood is damp or unseasoned you'll get more smoke. Always maintain a flame too.

[brickie in oz]

Use charcoal, its available here and comes from Argentina, I cant remember the cost off hand ($10 per bag maybe?) but there is almost no smoke whats so ever and burns as hot as hell, Ive clocked it at 700c in my oven

[david s]

The best wood is free wood.

[brickie in oz]

Originally Posted by david s

The best wood is free wood.

Doesn't it smoke?

[david s]

I use quite a lot of fallen Eucalypt branches and twigs. They burn extremely well with little smoke provided they're not too barky or damp. I usually reserve a few solid, dense, split heart-wood pieces to place near the end of the firing to really get some serious heat in there. The finger sized sticks are excellent for maintaining the "fire on the side"

[dmun]

Skids are super-dry hardwood. Someone mentioned a marking to show ones that are untreated, a search might reveal it. They're a pain to take apart, but they burn like the furies.