Curran Premium hard/soft Blend

Don't know anything about your pellets, but love the avatar. Jethro was one of my favorite characters on television.

Sometimes pellet quality within a brand changes year to year due to where they are getting their sawdust from.

Yes, they are really nasty this year. Stuff I get from wally world and HD burn with less ash and cr*p! Unfortunately pre-paid for 3 tons this year, so will have a really dirty stove for quite a while. I have been mixing in Maine's Choice to help anyway. I only put it in the Harman - the St. Croix does not like it at all.

"Sometimes pellet quality within a brand changes year to year due to where they are getting their sawdust from."

This is true, especially with cheap - low-end pellet manufacturers who are just trying to move their product. I would think I would see this with new pellet up-start companies, but not with Curran - who have been in the business for a while now and pride themselves on 'sustainably harvested timber'; for as you see one of the reasons I chose 'Currans' as my 'main source of pellets' was that they sourced their wood pellet stock from their own forests - that and the fact that they were regional to me.

I was one of the biggest advocates of Curran pellets throughout the years, and have burned well over 12+ tons of them. The cold, hard truth however; is that although being a mediocre pellet with a history of 'always' producing an excessive amount of ash - their pellet quality IMHO has slowly been going downhill - as is exemplified by Jethro's post up there (hey, you chose that Avatar!)

This is just one guys opinion, but I have been burning different pellets for over 10 years. To put things into perspective, I am basing my Curran pellet experience via burning with an Enviro Maxx - which will make short work with just about any pellet. If my Maxx were a dog, i'm sure it would be licking my heels right now thanking me for not choking its innards anymore with this sub-standard, north country excuse for a pellet.

Their product is doing a disservice to the pellet stove industry - they don't seem to be in the business for the long run and appear to be focusing on quantity over quality.

I have burned over 25 tons of Curran's soft/hard blend and see little difference in the quality over the past 3 winters. I get no clinkers, small amount of fine grey ash, and plenty of heat. Burning them in a Harman PB 105. If I had a choice I probably would only change is the price made the difference. At $249 per ton delivered no one can come close. And 8200 Btus per pound or thereabouts for all bone dry wood with the aforementioned qualities, no complaints. And I know that the wood is harvested locally, debarked, ground, and dried. No sawdust, no mill scraps and etc.

I just want to point out that a Harman PB 105 is a pellet boiler and may be an entirely different beast altogether when it comes to comparing how pellets burn in a device - everyone else in this thread so far are using pellet stoves.

I will agree that I never had any 'clinkers' with Curran and that they always provided 'enough' heat for my use - the price couldn't be beat as well in my region. These are great strong points for any pellet IMO, but the deal breaker for me was the excessive ash they created. If they could clean up the ash issue, I would go back to them in a heartbeat.

edit: Harmon to Harman

Where did you buy them? I bought a dozen bags last weekend just east of where you are... (tax free) and they are burning fine in my stove.

VTrider said:

I just want to point out that a Harmon PB 105 is a pellet boiler and may be an entirely different beast altogether when it comes to comparing how pellets burn in a device - everyone else in this thread so far are using pellet stoves.

I will agree that I never had any 'clinkers' with Curran and that they always provided 'enough' heat for my use - the price couldn't be beat as well in my region. These are great strong points for any pellet IMO, but the deal breaker for me was the excessive ash they created. If they could clean up the ash issue, I would go back to them in a heartbeat.

Click to expand...

Harmon is that the Chinese nock off to the Harman stove ???

Lowe's have North American pellets, they have been among the best I have tried yet...but they are a little on the spendy side. I tried to get a deal on a ton, but they wouldn't budge on their price.

VTrider said:

I just want to point out that a Harman PB 105 is a pellet boiler and may be an entirely different beast altogether when it comes to comparing how pellets burn in a device - everyone else in this thread so far are using pellet stoves.

I will agree that I never had any 'clinkers' with Curran and that they always provided 'enough' heat for my use - the price couldn't be beat as well in my region. These are great strong points for any pellet IMO, but the deal breaker for me was the excessive ash they created. If they could clean up the ash issue, I would go back to them in a heartbeat.

edit: Harmon to Harman

Click to expand...

I think the Curran hard/soft blend bag indicates that the ash is less than 1% so I measured it only once. I burned a ton and measured the weight of the ash in the ash pan. I could not measure the ash in the pipes and that adhered to the walls and tubes of the boiler. The weight in the pan was 8 pounds total. I don't think there was additional 8 pounds in the pipes and boiler, but if there was that would be 16 pounds of ash in the ton of pellets. 16/2000 is .8%. again I only performed one test but was satisfied.

SmokeEater said:

I think the Curran hard/soft blend bag indicates that the ash is less than 1% so I measured it only once. I burned a ton and measured the weight of the ash in the ash pan. I could not measure the ash in the pipes and that adhered to the walls and tubes of the boiler. The weight in the pan was 8 pounds total. I don't think there was additional 8 pounds in the pipes and boiler, but if there was that would be 16 pounds of ash in the ton of pellets. 16/2000 is .8%. again I only performed one test but was satisfied.

Click to expand...

This year it weighs a lot more I would wager. Last year I was happy with them, this year, not so much.

I picked up 10 bags last week and must say they are really dirty with huge clinkers in my stove. My Timber Heats burned better. The Vurrans are burning hotter however so I don't care, plus I'm at the mercy of just getting my hands on anything to burn at this point. Next year, 5 tons for this pellet pig. Oil is $3 a gallon here so I'm still saving money chasing them around. We'll see what's on the truck tomorrow at the local hardware store.

KodiakII said:

Lowe's have North American pellets, they have been among the best I have tried yet...but they are a little on the spendy side. I tried to get a deal on a ton, but they wouldn't budge on their price.

Click to expand...

You guys in Belleville should pick up a couple bags of Satisfaction from Home depot $5.29/bag. They are low ash and burn hot as hell, 8500 btu!

13 hrs on satisfaction.

Beaudeen said:

Those Satisfaction softwoods were pretty darn good..I burned about 30 bags earlier in the season but now am hooked on La Cretes.

Click to expand...

ive been at the camp the last 2 days finally and I burned la cretes and lac woods. no comparison the la cretes burned hotter and were more consistant in size. the lac woods were really consistently big 1" 1/4. and they didn't burn as good. The flame was smaller.

I had good luck with green golds.. And lg granules.. Pdv's love softies tho. My stove Is a happy camper with stove chow too