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I know this has been discussed before but, I can't locate where it is. Basically I have a new coal supply and when it is getting started I see mostly yellow flames with a little blue mixed in. When I was burning kimmels it was all blue flames. What is the difference between these coals? This isn't a problem as the new coal does burn hot. The ash is very course though.

JB Sparks wrote:I know this has been discussed before but, I can't locate where it is. Basically I have a new coal supply and when it is getting started I see mostly yellow flames with a little blue mixed in. When I was burning kimmels it was all blue flames. What is the difference between these coals? This isn't a problem as the new coal does burn hot. The ash is very course though.

Yellow flame coal More volatiles & fines lower carbon content in the coal.
Blue flame coal as a higher carbon content in it less volatiles in the coal .

Thanks coalberner, What mines is this type of coal coming from?

JB Sparks wrote:Thanks coalberner, What mines is this type of coal coming from?

It will depend on the vein of coal aswell many coal companies are in the same veins of coal .
There are only so many veins of coal depending on the coal field that the company is mining in many will be in the same coal fields. So they will be in the same vein of coal . There are three big fields and one small field . look at the link
below you have the Southeran field the Middle Easteran field the Middle Western field the Northern field .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Region

Thanks J.C. That answers my question. One of these days i'll have to take a ride down to coal country and look around. Been reading the thread on the history of coal, it is so interesting.

So, with bluer flame coal having more carbon can we assume it has slightly higher BTU ouput..?

hyway61

I haven't noticed any detectable difference in heat output but, the coal that is puting out yellow flames seems to be boardering on stove size coal as apposed to the kimmels that had a lot of pea size in it. supposedly stove size runs hoter than nut size according to what I read on this forum. Bottom line is both are keeping the house nice and toasty. I was just curious what the difference was, and now I know thanks to J.C. the coal guru.

When I leave the ash door open and let the air really blast through the coal bed, the coal that usually puts off a blue flame turns to a orange/yellow flame in the spots where the air flowed through the most and turned the coal the hottest. Then when it settles down it turns blue again. Maybe the higher combustion rate released more volatiles??? Maybe the air fuel(gasses) mixture above those hot spots is not optimal??? Maybe both??? Maybe none of the above!!!

more air blows more ash/fly ash into the flame from the fuel bed, this causes the ash particles to become hot and glow thus producing the "orange flame"; the blue flame is still there, you just can't see it over the light eminating from the very incandescent ash particles. anthracite with more fines will create more orange flames, penn anth has such a low volitile content and volitile content variability that a variation of 1 or 2% won't make a noticable visable difference in burning characteristics, but an increase in fines, debris, or coal dust will.