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Poor justification to produce firewood, say, before a lot of cold weather (9)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

choplogic

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'poor justification' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.

'firewood say before a lot of cold weather' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'firewood' could be 'log' (log is a kind of firewood) and 'log' is found within the answer.
'lot' could be 'c' and 'c' is located in the answer.
'of' could be 'o' and 'o' is located in the answer.
'cold' could be 'c' (eg on taps) and 'c' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

'to produce' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Another definition for choplogic that I've seen is " false reasoning".)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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