Why is My Solo Stove Smoking (and how do I make it stop)!?

Is your Solo Stove smoking?

In case you’re just starting out with Solo Stove fire pits and somehow your Bonfire, Yukon or Ranger aren’t aligning well with your expectations of a smokeless fire pit, there’s a chance that you need to refine your fire-building skills.

Unfortunately, your Solo Stove smoking could result from one issue or four, but either way, we’ll jump in, cover each, and I’ll show you what to do.

Solo Stoves can produce smoke for several reasons: using wet or unseasoned wood, burning primarily softwoods, overfilling the stove beyond air inlet holes, or lacking a sufficient hot coal bed. These issues disrupt the efficient airflow and combustion process designed for Solo Stoves. Addressing these factors ensures optimal performance and minimal smoke production.

Just remember, all Solo Stoves and smokeless fire pits produce some smoke.

No fire pit magically makes any type or condition of wood smokeless. Achieving a fully smokeless fire is not yet possible.

Keep in mind: smokeless doesn’t mean no smoke at all.

Let’s jump in…

In my experience, there are four main drivers for a Solo Stove fire that smokes a lot, and all are pretty easy to overcome.

The tips I’m going to give you for each of these will all become second nature as you get more experience building low-smoke smokeless fire pit fires.

Resolving any one of these is going to make a big difference – resolve them all, and you’ll have about as little smoke as possible for a wood-burning fire pit. <— link to my article on how to reduce fire pit smoke

A. Reasons Why You Have Bad Solo Stove Smoking

If you see that some of these might look familiar or a potential cause of your Solo Stove smoking issues, don’t sweat it.  

I’ve made all of the mistakes that can be made, so you don’t have to.  We’ll get you to smokeless in no time.

 We’ll cover this four one by one – here we go.  

1. You Are Using Unseasoned Firewood

What is unseasoned firewood, you ask?  Well, for our purposes here, it’s firewood with a moisture content of higher than 30%. 

Twenty percent (20%) is ideal, but you won’t find that number usually unless you are looking at kiln-dried firewood.

Poorly seasoned firewood does not burn well, and when wood doesn’t burn well, it smokes a lot.  

If you are buying firewood from a supplier, you want to be in that 30% or less range, ideally.

Sometimes you’ll get there, and sometimes you won’t (unless you are buying kiln-dried firewood, that is).

  Smokeless fire pits are more accommodating of varying firewood quality and moisture content than traditional pits.

Solo Stoves’ efficient burn dries wet wood better than regular fire pits, improving the combustion of less-seasoned firewood.

 Once moisture is rapidly extracted from the wood, smoke production significantly decreases under specific conditions discussed later.

Regular fire pits will smoke and smoke until the fire goes out.  They just don’t get hot enough at the beginning to deal with the moisture in imperfect wood.

2. You Are Using Softwoods as the Main Firewood Source

Softwoods like spruce, firs, pines, cedar, etc., are pitchy, meaning they’ve got sap that’s going to make your fire smoke.

Not only that, softwoods, once ignited, burn extremely hot and fast.  Not an ideal situation for a long night by the fire.

With that said, softwood kindling can be very useful in getting a fire started.  This is where the hot and fast combo comes in handy.  

Otherwise, I wouldn’t use softwoods as your main fire pit fuel source unless that’s all you have.  

I occasionally use pinyon in my fire pit for its intense heat and longer burn time compared to typical softwoods.

Also, Pinyon smoke repels mosquitoes, offering relief in mosquito-prone areas.

Now we are getting into the meat and potatoes of the article with the next two items.  

Both are easy to do and will have the biggest impact on whether your Solo Stove smokes heavily or not.

3. You are Building the Firewood Stack Too High

Solo Stove smokeless fire pits burn off smoke in a process called secondary burn.  

Hot air rises through double walls, exiting top holes to burn smoke before it escapes the fire pit.

Stacking wood above the air holes in a smokeless fire pit prevents proper secondary combustion, causing smoke.

Keep the top of your firewood below these holes to take full advantage of your Solo Stove’s secondary combustion capabilities.  

 I generally keep the fire about 3 inches below the top air holes, regardless of the Solo Stove model.

It’s a lot easier to do on the larger models.

4. You are Not Building a Hot Coal Bed Before Adding the Main Firewood Source

This is my number one tip for any new Solo Stove user.  A super-hot coal bed is the key to a truly smokeless fire.

What is a coal bed?  If you’ve grilled over charcoal in the past, then you know what I’m talking about.  

A coal bed in your fire pit is going to be those blazing hot embers that line the bottom of your Solo Stove Bonfire, Yukon, or Ranger.  <— link to my review of the Solo Stove Bonfire 2.0

A hot bed of coals dries out your wood fast, cutting down smoke and keeping the fire going strong.

With a good hot coal base, your Solo Stove fire burns better and keeps going until you’re done adding wood.

Coal beds are best built slowly at the beginning of the fire. 

I start building my coal beds with tinder and kindling and slowly add smaller firewood splits (I use beech for this most of the time) that have been quartered to the fire as it starts to establish.  

Once you’ve been feeding smaller pieces of wood like the splits I mentioned for about 20 minutes or so, you should start seeing a solid coal bed forming. 

II. How Do Solo Stoves Work?

I’ll cover this briefly here, but I’ve got an article on the subject of smokeless fire pits that covers how Solo Stoves work if you are looking for a little more detail.

Solo Stoves, as currently designed, are based on a wood-burning stove technology called Top Lit Updraft Gasification or T.L.U.D. <— link to University of Florida publication on TLUD technology  

These wood-burning stoves were designed to pull air through the base of the stove by creating a vacuum inside the fire pit by starting a fire.

This air, once inside the stove, is channeled to vents at the base of the fire, with some of the air traveling up the stove’s double wall.

The air going to the base of the fire helps the fire burn more efficiently. 

Regular wood-burning fire pits don’t have this ability, pulling air from all directions except the bottom of the fire where it is the most effective.

The air that heads up the double wall toward the top of the stove and exits through interior vent holes feeds a second burn aimed at smoke reduction.

The original TLUD stoves, designed for use in the developing world by Dr. Paul Anderson, helped to maximize the effects of the wood fuel available while also making it cleaner, burning, and healthier for users.

Solo Stove and a number of its competitors have harnessed the capabilities of TLUD design by carrying it over the residential backyard fire pit market.  

Again, for more on TLUD and its connection to current smokeless fire pits, please check out the article I mentioned earlier.

III. Best Low Smoke Firewood for Solo Stoves

Before I wind the article down, I wanted to quickly cover what I believe are among the best firewood types for a Solo Stove smokeless fire pit.  

Earlier I mentioned what types of wood not to use, so I wanted to balance that out with a list of wood recommendations. 

I chose these three firewood types because they are plentiful (at least around the U.S), have high BTU ratings, are great for building a hot coal bed, and are naturally low smoking.

Low Smoke Firewood Species	BTU Rating	Notes
Shagbark Hickory	28	Excellent coaling; hard to split
American Beech	28	Excellent coaling; hard to split
Bur Oak	26	Excellent coaling; easy to split
Red Maple	24	Good coaling; easy to split
White Ash	24	Good coaling; medium splitting difficulty

A. What Firewood Does the Manufacturer Recommend?

Interestingly, Solo Stove recommends juniper firewood in their fire pits. 

I say they recommend it because it’s the only fire pit wood type they sell under their own branding.

What makes juniper an interesting choice is that it’s a softwood. 

I’ve never used it myself, but from what I understand, it is very dense, which is a positive for firewood.  Denser firewood tends to burn longer and hotter.

With a BTU rating of about 22, it’s definitely on the high-end heat-wise for softwoods, and not surprisingly, it’s got a medium smoke level.

IV. Wrap-up:  Why Does My Solo Stove Smoke So Much?

So, if you want to make your Solo Stove truly smokeless and more efficient, give a few of the tips discussed a shot and see how they work for you. 

And don’t forget to experiment a little – everyone has their own preferences when it comes to running their own fire pit.  What works for one person might not work as well for another. 

With a little practice, you should be able to create some amazing Solo Stove fires that put our little smoke and plenty of warmth over during the upcoming winter.

One final thing, keeping damp ash out of your Solo Stove is helpful as well for keeping your smokeless fire pit from smoking a lot.

Check out my article Your Solo Stove Got Rained On…Now What? for keeping your Solo Stove clean and low smoking.

Thanks for reading!

John

V. FAQs: Why Does My Solo Stove Smoke So Much?