Acid test!

So I thought I would try the worst possible wood available. This I figured was wet pine bark.

So once I had a good ash bead. In went a full load of wet, not just damp, but damp though, pine bark that was in the process of composting. It sat there for some time and it looked as though it was going to kill the ash bead, but after about 20 minutes the flame (in the flame box) started to picked up. (at no time did I get any smell or smoke.)  

It then burnt it all. I think it just needed a little time to dry out the bark on the bottom and away it went. (Don’t try this at home, it was just for interest.)