Greenway oak pellets

I have one bag left from a couple years ago....loved them! Where did you find those at? Haven't seen them up in this area since then.

If it were me I'd buy at a ton of them....Hopefully they still bun good though...

This is the third year that I've burned Greenways, the only brand available except Carolina Wood Products, which SUCK. Greenways have been very consistent the previous two years when they were labeled as 'hardwood pellets'. This year they are 'premium oak' and they still have plenty of heat but, for the first time, I am seeing small crusty buildup in the pot after one day of running. You could call it a 'soft' clinker which can be broken up with your fingers after it's cool. The pellets are very dense. I used to get three 5 gallon buckets of pellets per bag and now I get two and one half. I've had to completely close my feed gates and on the Sante Fe run no higher than Medium of the flame is all the way to the baffle. Plenty of heat but just the clinker to worry about if you run several days without cleaning. No big deal. I paid $4.75 a bag down in Georgia.

rich2500 said:

Never seen them or heard of them but just picked up 21 bags.anyone ever burn them, I have some TSC brand and and stove chow and cheat rivers to burn up before i break inro the greenways

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I have been using them this year for the first time. Was very surprised at the heat I get out of them. I think they are better than Somersets!
I have burned 3 pallets this year and very pleased with them.

tjnamtiw said:

This year they are 'premium oak' and they still have plenty of heat but, for the first time, I am seeing small crusty buildup in the pot after one day of running.

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Barefoots act the same way in my Castile when I run it on High.

The Hamers Hot Ones web site has a very good description:
"Our Elkins plant uses almost 100% Oak to make pellets. These produce a heavy, gritty ash that performs best in a pellet appliance with a lot of air flow. The Elkins pellet is less that a half percent of ash year round - which some people refer to as a "ultra premium" pellet."

SwineFlue said:

Barefoots act the same way in my Castile when I run it on High.

The Hamers Hot Ones web site has a very good description:
"Our Elkins plant uses almost 100% Oak to make pellets. These produce a heavy, gritty ash that performs best in a pellet appliance with a lot of air flow. The Elkins pellet is less that a half percent of ash year round - which some people refer to as a "ultra premium" pellet."

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Yep, I would describe the ash that gets blown out of the pot as gritty. It LOOKS like sandblast medium. Now there's an interesting thought. Has anyone ever used the ash in a sand blaster????? I never gave that one a thought.

I have burnt about a ton of Greenways through my stove this year and was very pleased with how hot they were and how little ash they produced. This is my first winter burning and I have only tried 8 different pellet brands so far and I would say that these are likely in the top two. It seemed to me like they fed really fast through the auger, likely because the pellets were pretty small and dense. When I left the settings the same as I had them for Indeck Pellets (really ashy and dirty by the way) they overheated my stove. Next time they go on sale I will probably buy a ton of them, but I will have to modify to feed rate to accommodate the density of the pellet. I just bought a ton of heartlands softwoods so I don't know if I will get back around to giving Greenways a second run this year.

Stoped at my Hd Sunday they had 3 bag's of Greenway, bunch of LEE pellets and FSU, left with a ton of FSU

Burned them years ago. Have not see them around here for quite some time.

Having burned the Greenway's for years but only seeing the clinkers this year with the 'Oak pellets', I started thinking (dangerous!). Before they were labeled hardwood and had NO clinkers EVER. I thought back to my earlier consideration of purchasing and setting up a small pelletizer operation for myself. One thing I learned was that the small pelletizers needed an additive called a binder to get the pellets to remain solid because not enough heat was generated in the formation to release the lignin in the wood, which was a natural binder. Further investigation revealed that this binder was CORNSTARCH. http://www.mataminc.com/woodfuel.php
If you have ever burned corn, you know that you periodically get clinkers or 'hockey pucks' that must be removed manually or, in the case of the Bixby, automatically. So my logical conclusion is that, perhaps, Greenway and other manufacturers have found that the use of this binder helps them to make harder pellets that don't fall apart during handling and transport and result in less fines. That would reduce their waste as well as complaints. The downside would be that the pellets form a softer version of the corn burner's hockey puck.
Sound reasonable?

Have gone through 2 ton so far this year. Paid 190/ton. Now they are 4.49/bag. Good heat, no clinkers. They are producing more ash than last year's batch. They are probably the best pellet you can get in my area - save for an occasional / rare batch of Sommersets at Lowe's.

I burned 5 bags on a recommendation from a friend, they are a very good pellet IMO.

Came and gone here

3rd burning season and I have burned 4 tons or so of greenways. I burned about 10 bags of some TSC pellets my first year just to try something different and learned my lesson. Only greenways for me. 200 a ton here, I think mainly because they are a fairly local company. So a good pellet, little ash, good price and supporting local company. Winner winner chicken dinner.

I still have 2 tons in the shed and 3/4 a ton on the porch. The ones from this year look "darker" and tad more ash (maybe an extra vacuuming every other weeks worth) but feel no difference in heat.

They want 260/mth around here for them