Dirty Burn Pellet

miteclipse said:

What actually causes a pellet company to make a bad batch of pellets/quality control?

Got a change to clean the stove yesterday, wipe the glass, etc. Loaded up the P68 with Lignetics last night. This morning checked the stove, just had a little haze. About 2 hours later, the top of the glass was covered with the famous black dirty window. Also noticed that the some of the heat exchangers near the back looked the same. Gaskets are good (paper test).


*sigh

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It was explained to me by the manager of a pellet manufacturer in NH (New England Wood Products) that there are minerals in the wood and that it can vary as raw material supplies vary from year to year. He added that it had very little to do with bark or additives, since at their plant there is no bark and they don't add any binding agents. That may not be true at all pellet mills but he seemed to imply that is the most common reason and said that of their four mills, the pellets from their NY mills are different and more ashy than those from the Jaffrey, NH mill, even though the manufacturing processes are relatively the same.

Pellets may have absorbed some moisture that can lower the burn temp and then the soot starts

If you watch how pellets are made, it is easy to see how a "bad batch" can happen. They have to mix various wood source materials. Sometimes they may get an extra truck or two from a saw mill, and next time they may get more wet chipped limbs. They have to dry it and grind it to pelletize it, but it is difficult to know the true lignin content of a batch.

miteclipse said:

With the drying procedure, I would have thought that the wood have to reach a certain temperature to meet certain requires.

Anyone else notice on the Lignetics bags that on each side there are 3 little holes to allow air/allow the pellets to breathe.

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Several manufacturers' bags have those holes in one form or another.

miteclipse said:

Anyone else notice on the Lignetics bags that on each side there are 3 little holes to allow air/allow the pellets to breathe.

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As I understand it, the pellets are quite warm when they come out of the die / press machines, prior to being machine bagged. So the vent holes in the bags apparently allow for the heat to escape and minimize condensation inside the bag, as well as allowing for the pellets to shift around after being bagged to allow for flat-stacking them evenly on the pallets.

At least that's what I heard from one of the major pellet producers up here in Maine. I remember the 4 tons I got delivered my first burn season where the bags were still warm, and the delivery guy said he had just loaded them after they had been die pressed, bagged and stacked. That was a fresh batch for sure, but they had no shrink wrapping, and only a cheapo plastic cover over the pallets, so I was glad to get them undercover from the weather in my barn garage.

miteclipse said:

With the drying procedure, I would have thought that the wood have to reach a certain temperature to meet certain requires.

Anyone else notice on the Lignetics bags that on each side there are 3 little holes to allow air/allow the pellets to breathe.

Click to expand...

I just noticed that today in fact when I was bringing in the green supremes...I assumed they were venting holes.

The holes are for letting air escape while being filled.

And stacked. Would be like trying to stack a bunch of balloons and pallet would never settle and stabilize

just finished a ton of Lignetics [green lettered Bag]...
lot more ashy than I exspected.......greyish ash..

Some interesting info here. I burnt Northern Max (Cubex) exclusively last season and again this season. This season I swear I'm getting twice as much ash than last year. I just assumed quality control went out the window and was going to write off using this pellet next year. Maybe I'll give them another chance next year and see what if anything changes. Then again with oil prices so low I may hold off buying pellets in spring and just switch to oil until prices change.