Cherry pits, so far so good

I've been thinking about test burning cherry pits for a while now. I broke down and bought a couple bags yesterday. This morning I cleaned the stove, vacuumed the hopper and loaded it with about 20 pounds of pits. Switched the stove to corn mode, dropped some wood pellets in the burn pot, turned the stove on and let it rip.

So far i'm impressed. Not a lot of ash is evident, but what is there is pretty fine. Glass is staying clean and the house jumped right up to 69 degrees. Its a balmy 23 outside. We'll see what happens now that the thermostat dropped the stove to low. One disadvantage I could see is weight to volume. 40 pounds of pits is more volume than 40 pounds of pellets. Worst case I check the hopper an extra time or two a day. They have an interesting sound as they get crunched by the auger and dropped into the burn pot.

Might try a 50/50 mix next. The stove shop has pits for $185/ton so the price is right if they burn clean and put out decent heat. I don't need any more for this season, but its never too soon to think about next season.

Not a whole lot to show, but here they are. Its hard to get a good pic of the stove with the glare coming in from the outside.

Not much dust to speak of at all in the bag. I did find a stem and piece of a twig/branch in the bag. Those are in the picture of the hopper contents.

Probably not a lot of difference between these and the nut shells you burn Snowy, except you get the nut shells for a lot better price than I'd pay for pits, plus you buy them in lot larger quantities.

j-takeman said:

I picked up 2 bags at TSC last season. I haven't burned mine yet. But heard they burn hot and fast. Problem is my TSC wants more for them than pellets. a 30 pound bag goes for $6/bag. Too pricey for me! But good to know they will burn if I have no other choices.

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I wouldn't pay $6 for a 30 pound bag either. $3.70 for 40 pounds isn't out of range though, especially since that's the usual price range of lower end pellets.

We'll see what happens after this bag is gone. So far nothing bad to report.

Here's a pic of the bag. When I passed them in the store at first I wasn't sure what they were as it says "The natural wood pellet" on the bag. The bag is about 20% larger than a standard pellet bag, so I knew something was up.

Now that they've been burning a while, they do produce more ash than my "benchmark" Somerset pellet, about the same as some of the lower end pellets I've burned. I slid the ash pan out and have gotten maybe 3 or so tablespoons of ash that made it to the pan, which isn't far from normal as this is just the ash that falls down when the agitator runs (pic attached). There is a decent amount of "fluffy" ash also, almost like what you'd see when burning leaves. A lot of it is sticking to the sides of the firebox. Its definitely more noticeable now that the stove has been running on low for a bit. Heat output is good, not as good as Somerset, but better than others. I can deal with the ash as long as there is decent heat. The true story will be seeing what is left behind in the stove after this bag is gone and I clean the stove again.

More to come if anything interesting comes out of this. I suspect it will be rather boring.

imacman said:

pelletash said:

.....$3.70 for 40 pounds isn't out of range though......

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Yes, but that's because you are in a big area for cherries.....as soon as you ship them any significant distance (like to the east or west coasts), the price shoots right up, as Jay's price indicates.

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Sure does, just like any west coast softwood pellet that makes it to my area sells for about the same price as Jay would pay for cherry pits. I get up to Traverse City every couple months for work and drive through Kingsley on the way there. Next time I'm in the neighborhood I'll have to see if they have a storefront that sells direct, or maybe some of the folks here that live in that area can chime in and let me know.

I'm pretty certain you'd need multi fuel vent. From what I've read the exhaust is a bit more acidic. I used multifuel vent when I installed the stove and the 6041 has a stainless burn pot.

I like the heat so far. It's 25 outside and the house is 69, which is where I set the thermostat. I turned the feed rate down on the stove just a bit earlier today. More pits get fed in each cycle of the auger as they are obviously smaller than pellets. The glass is starting to get a bit dirty now, but the stove hasn't kicked off low in about 4 hours. That happens with every pellet I've burned. If I had to guess I've gone through half the bag so far, which is on par with my average consumption.

There are a couple disadvantages I can think of. One is the extra step lighting the stove. I've got to throw in a handful of wood pellets before turning the stove on as the manual says thats the way to light the stove when burning corn, pits or other non wood pellet fuel. The ignitor cycle is a lot shorter on the 6041 when burning in corn mode versus pellet mode, and the pits have a higher igntion point. Second is the additional space to store a ton of pits versus a ton of pellets. Just guessing, but a ton of pits will probably take up the same space as 1.5 tons of pellets.

I don't think I'd go exclusively with pits, but I'm definitely considering picking up a ton for next season, especially if the price stays where they are now.

I'm looking forward to your review of these Jay, as you are one of the official Hearth.com pellet testers.

I've read some of the various readings about cyanide compounds in cherry pits, apple seeds, peach pits, almonds and what not. I'm not terribly worried about it. I don't breathe in the exhaust from my stove. The nearest neighbor is 400 feet away and prevailing winds this time of year push any exhaust over open farmland.

I'm more concerned about the smoke that comes from the neighbors burn barrel every Sunday afternoon.