B logs are compressed wood briquettes made from renewable chestnut coppice at Amery Court in Blean.
They are much drier than logs and have a moisture content of around 10% as opposed to logs that are usually between 20% to 35%.
This means that when you buy B logs you are buying very little water and lots of wood.
B logs are much more condensed than ordinary firewood (they sink when you put them in water),which means that you get more wood into smaller space than with logs, and they are easier to carry.
A 10 Kilo bag of B logs has just under 50 kilowatts of heat in it. A 10 kilo bag of sawn logs would be twice the size and at 25% moisture would have about 38 kilowatts of heat in it.
B logs are excellent for wood burning stoves, open fires,chimeneas and barbecues.They are easy to light as they are very dry.
They burn with plenty of heat,very little smoke and ash.
B logs expand a little as they burn so wood stoves should not be fully filled.
See Burning Instructions
Because briquettes are very dry they will burn more quickly than a wet logs.
- In order to manage the rate of burn the air flow over the briquette should be less than that over a log. If you follow these instructions you will get more heat for your money than you will from logs.
- The thing to remember is that with all wood it is mainly the gasses in the wood that you are burning and you release those gasses by heating the wood. If you release them too quickly, without enough “secondary” air above the fire base, the gasses containing the heat will just go up the chimney and be lost.
- If you burn wet logs a lot of the heat available is used to evaporate the water in the logs and you do not get the benefit of it.
A truly superb fire can be made using a couple of side logs and a center of Briquettes. It will not matter if the logs are a little damp as the heat from the Briquettes will overcome this.
If your fire sits on a grate allow the ash to build up to restrict the flow of air through the grate. The Briquettes will then burn more slowly.
If there is an air control under the grate shut it down to get a slower burn.
Make a fire of a few Briquettes placed between two logs running from the front of the fire to the back.
This will give you a hot heart to your fire with the logs containing the fire in a concentrated area.
As the fire burns down add one or two Briquettes to give you the burn you want and replace the side logs as they are burnt.
WOOD BURNING STOVES
Place a layer of Briquettes on the floor of the stove and open the bottom and top air flow, light the Briquettes,one small firelighter will do it.
Allow a hot base to develop for say 15 minutes and then restrict the bottom or primary air to just keep the base ticking over and releasing gas.
Adjust the secondary,or top, air and the gasses given off from the base will burn in the top of the stove giving you a slow rolling burn and excellent heat.
Add briquettes as required.