KingCoal wrote: ↑Fri. Dec. 01, 2017 7:55 pm
Hi Paulie, what's happening ?
have you decided you like those clam shell grates ?
any other new tending practice to share about the #25 ?
Hi Steve ! Yes, I really prefer these clamshell grates to the center draw type.
The only difference in tending so far are nights such as this where the oat dips into the 20*'s. I'm running the air handler on the stoker to circulate the heat upstairs.
In order to maintain 72* to 74* upstairs I'm running the stove temp about 650*.
With one inch of refractory, it's really only an 11" pot so I give it a good shakedown before I go to sleep and 6 to 8 hours later when I get up in the morning.
The technique I use works great with the magazine.
Lifting the clamshell center grate and sliding the outer ring grate back and forth creates an igloo of sorts in the coal bed. As the coal above it burns, it weakens the top and sides. The weight of the coal in the magazine collapses the bed and spreads the fresh fuel across the pot.
Because the coal burns to a dust, when the bed drops, most of the fine ash falls right thru the grate and into the ash pan.
There is a noticeable difference in the amount of ash in the ash pan from when I shake it down before going to bed and when I get up in the morning.
This seems to give me another 2 hours or so of consistent stove temperature before it starts to ash up.
Paulie