Buckwheat in a Leisure Line?

Will it work
Will it break the stove
Could there be any benefit

Thank you
Don

NOT recommeded due to the way the stoker mechanism works and you could get it to burn back up into the hopper due to the increased air flow thru the larger coal....

I have run Buckwheat in my Keystoker, but the pusher block/stoker is made differently and actually blocks off the hopper.

Hi Don,
You can burn a mix of about 30% buck with rice. I think if you look at the UL tag it states rice coal only. If you went with buck, there's no fear of a hopper fire, but you would need to recalculate the min/max.
Jer

I had a hopper fire with buckwheat on my Keystoker. I don't know if it's attributable to the buck alone, or the fact that I probably had misadjusted draft due to not verifying my settings on the direct vent vs. combustion air supply when switching over sizes.

Nevertheless, I've run it at about a 25% buck mix and that works great. I'd try it again if I had access to a large supply of it, but since I have only rice, it's not a big deal.

i've been burning buckwheat in my stokers just about a year now.......it lasts longer and burns hotter than the rice......rice coal seems to burn up alot faster in my stoves

It all depends on the type of stoker unit you have, NOT all are made the same.....

I run a mix (70 rice/30 Buck) in my Keystoker to eliminate the clumps/clinkers. I run only rice in the LL stove.

Thanks for the info. I will pick up some Buckwheat and experiment on some days when I can keep an eye on the results.

As for the burn back worry, the 5 inches between the coal door and the burn area on the grate seems to be relatively cool. I have thrown cigarette butts in that area and it take a very long time for them to ignite. I would think that the flue would have to be plugged before the gasses and heat would begin to travel toward the hopper. Or maybe too much draft up the chimmey could suck enough air down through the coal hopper. But with a barometric damper the pull of the chimney is controlled. With the combustion blower force feeding air, and the chimney gently sucking off the exhaust gas, it appears to be a very balanced system. A very controlled burn.

Thank you Jerry, Dave, and all, for the input

Don

xackley wrote: But with a barometric damper the pull of the chimney is controlled. With the combustion blower force feeding air, and the chimney gently sucking off the exhaust gas, it appears to be a very balanced system. A very controlled burn.
Don

That's the key - barometric damper. My DV stove doesn't have a baro, I can only control the draft by balancing DV motor speed and combustion shutter adjustment. It's easy to do, but has to be kept a watch on with changes in ash buildup in the vent system and coal size. I'd feel a lot more comfortable trying it if my stove was not a DV but hooked to a regular chimney.

The experiment with buckwheat was a failure. The reason the Experiment was a failure was the quality of the buckwheat. The buckwheat I bought had the luster of stove black paint. Some pieces I was able to break with finger pressure.
With the larger coal, the stove actually ran cooler. A lot cooler. A full grate was probably only 350*. But because of the coal quality, I can not know if Buckwheat in a stoker actually reduces the heat output, or if lower temps was caused by the coal tested containing less BTU/volume.

You must have had some bad buckwheat size coal. When I ran buckwheat in my LL Pioneer it burned as hot or hotter than rice. The only problem I had was the 100% buckwheat fire and ash liked to slide down the grate too easy. The rice coal seemed to get gently pushed down the grate. I made a little 'speed bump' for the end of the grate from a piece of steel with two pins that fit into two of the holes in the grate. Worked very well.

Greg L

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We sell stoves for Jerry and have a coal yard. I have straight rice,straight buckwheat and we custom mix them for people. I have tested this in both the Hyfire 2 and Pioneer stoves. We sell premium anthracite coal from a private owned mine with the ash content at 7.9% and the B.T.U'S at over 13,000 per pound and the straight rice always burns about 50 degrees higher than a mix and burns up complete. If you run premium grade coal there should be little to no ash fusion and when you dump the ash pan there should be very little unburnt or "black" left in your pan. If you have a Leisure Line stove I would stick to straight rice if it is avaible in your area.

stcoal wrote: We sell stoves for Jerry and have a coal yard. We sell premium anthracite coal from a private owned mine

Not to hijack the thread but what do you mean by "Private Mine" do they sell exclusively to you or do you actually own the mine ? Many folks like to do the research themselves on the product being offered by a reseller and can get a bit perturbed when the source is unknown or concealed . Given all the variables surrounding coal and how its mined and processed the actual source is not an unreasonable request from an Anthracite savvy customer wouldn't you agree .

( Possible Flame Suit Central material )

I believe that the mine is owned by the operator as opposed to being leased by the operator is what he is referring to.

coaledsweat is correct. We are the largest buyer from the mine and they only sell what they mine out. There are no other outside sources, by doing this there is no quailty problems with "good" coal or "bad" coal. The coal is always great and clean and we get a tractor trailer load everyday during the peek and 3 a week for the rest of the season. As far as being savy,I am glad that you do your homework on coal mines but I am very tight lipped when it comes to my supplier. Thanks for the question though

stcoal wrote:As far as being savy,I am glad that you do your homework on coal mines but I am very tight lipped when it comes to my supplier. Thanks for the question though

Then I think people should think twice before they buy coal from you since they won't have a clue what they're plunking their money down for, it could be them Tri-axels full of waste/refuse coal that coal berner keeps seeing everywhere, not say'in it is but who knows !

But I guess you got'em over the barrel up there in Alvernia .

----- $180 ?