Logs from straw
BOATERS with stoves are often on the look-out for something to burn, and so a product from Mathew Bremner should be of great interest.
He is producing logs made from straw that easily break to make smaller logs that will easily fit into boat stoves.
Long burning
Mathew tells us that the raw material grows in 12 months so the logs are carbon neutral on an annual basis, and that the logs are three times as dense as hard wood, and having a very low moisture content, of less than 3%, the combination makes them long burning—up to three hours.
They flame from 45 minutes to an hour, then proceed to burn like charcoal/coal for a further two hours, with the secondary phase of burn, with little or no flame.
Very little mess
Being very dense they take up very little room and because they are wrapped in their paper moisture barrier there is very little mess. The ash after burning is potash, a very good garden fertiliser, with Mathew remarking:
"They have another hidden talent that I think is helping with the take up from the boating community, if you knock the logs together you can break them down into smaller pieces to be used in the squirrel burners and the like found on many narrowboats."