How often do you run your stove on high and for how long to reduce creosote?

[Bioburner]

Just been experimenting with very low moisture corn. The free corn I got was hitting 20 percent. Cooked on wood stove till next to nothing and a lot of brown and scorched kernels. Burning a blend with pellets and burn like a high grade softwood blend pellet leaving a nice tan to white ash. Really reduced the Harmans consumption as no need to drive off water at 210 degrees and cool the fire. If anybody knows of a small scale drier please let me know. People complaining of corn blackening thier stove the problem may well be the corn is abit high in moisture.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Corn all over the midwest has been coming of in the 20's. I got 'lucky' so to speak and took mine off at 21, but I've seen RM's as high as 30. It has to be artificially dried down to 15 or lower for storage or it molds (why I want old crop not new crop for the stove). I don't own a corn dryer so I'm at the mercy of the co-op for dryer charges. You'll see much less corn being planted next season simply because the profit isn't there and the inputs are constantly climbing. The one bright spot is fuel cost but N is getting more costly every year and corn loves N.

Like I said previously, I want my corn below 15 for the stove. Besides, it stores better. Understand, test weright and RM are 2 different animals. Test weight is the measure of the meat of the kernel (what we are burning), while RM is the measure of the moisture content. I want my test weight (if I can get it that is), in the mid 50's and again, the RM below 15. Thats pretty much ideal and ideal is hard to get with the odd 'Global Warming' weather we had last season. Global raining is more like it.

Lots of corn around here with smut and vomitoxin. It's roastable but not marketable....I've burned some nasty, moldy corn before (from a grain bin cleanout) that looked awful but was dry and roasted just fine. Corn don't have to be golden to burn well, in fact, a darker kernel is usually a higher test weight than a light gold kernel.

Usually Equipment Trader Online has a number of small rotary seperator/dryers that seed corn ops use for sale used. Takes a small electric motor and is basically a mesh screen cylinder thats inclined. Gets all the chaff out and you could rig up a hot air burner blowing across it to dry corn as dry as you want to get it. Me, I'll take the co-op stuff.

 

[bogieb]

Creosote forms from the incomplete combustion of overly damp ot green wood.and or the lack of enough oxygen to sustain a clean burn. None of those things will occur in a computer controlled pellet or corn burning stove. If you have a creosote issue (and you don't nean instead soot on your viewing glass) you have a serious problem. I've never had any creoste in my stove(s) or venting in 30 years.

With my St. Croix it is very possible to have creosote if the damper isn't correctly adjusted. And, the damper (at least on my particular stove) is touchy if the wind is blowing, or just if it is a different brand of pellet. I also burn it mostly on the lowest level since the Harman does most of the work in the basement and the 950 s/f the SC is heating so far hasn't been a challenge to keep the back rooms at 72.

So, I heat it up on level 3 once a day for 20-30 minutes in the evening. Do I have to? Maybe not, but it gives me some peace of mind. The Harman gets heated up 20-30 minutes every couple of days if it has been just idling along during warmer weather. If it is really cold out, it will torch itself while running, so I don't feel the eed to.

 

[mepellet]

30 years and no creosote on pellets or corn, I must be the exception then. Only ash here, always, but then, I don't idle it along either.

Enjoy your cider.....

We didn't say that all pellet stove do create creosote..... We said can. There seemed to be a few people confused because they thought pellet stove are not able to create creosote....

 

[mepellet]

Maybe yours, not mine, so, not that simple.

Perhaps your pellet stove is setup and operating correctly and in ideal conditions. I said they CAN produce creosote..... Can is the key word there.....

 

[SidecarFlip]

Perhaps your pellet stove is setup and operating correctly and in ideal conditions. I said they CAN produce creosote..... Can is the key word there.....

I try to simply because I like to fiddle and, I have a fiddlers stove. Every year, actually, every month it seems like, I tweak the settings slightly to compensate for variations in fuel quality, moisture content or weather conditions. Never any creosote, in fact I pull my venting every spring for a good cleaning inside and the bore is always clean or just a might bit of ash.

 

[mepellet]

Sounds like you are doing things right then! Good.

 

[Bioburner]

Corn all over the midwest has been coming of in the 20's. I got 'lucky' so to speak and took mine off at 21, but I've seen RM's as high as 30. It has to be artificially dried down to 15 or lower for storage or it molds (why I want old crop not new crop for the stove). I don't own a corn dryer so I'm at the mercy of the co-op for dryer charges. You'll see much less corn being planted next season simply because the profit isn't there and the inputs are constantly climbing. The one bright spot is fuel cost but N is getting more costly every year and corn loves N.

Like I said previously, I want my corn below 15 for the stove. Besides, it stores better. Understand, test weright and RM are 2 different animals. Test weight is the measure of the meat of the kernel (what we are burning), while RM is the measure of the moisture content. I want my test weight (if I can get it that is), in the mid 50's and again, the RM below 15. Thats pretty much ideal and ideal is hard to get with the odd 'Global Warming' weather we had last season. Global raining is more like it.

Lots of corn around here with smut and vomitoxin. It's roastable but not marketable....I've burned some nasty, moldy corn before (from a grain bin cleanout) that looked awful but was dry and roasted just fine. Corn don't have to be golden to burn well, in fact, a darker kernel is usually a higher test weight than a light gold kernel.

Usually Equipment Trader Online has a number of small rotary seperator/dryers that seed corn ops use for sale used. Takes a small electric motor and is basically a mesh screen cylinder thats inclined. Gets all the chaff out and you could rig up a hot air burner blowing across it to dry corn as dry as you want to get it. Me, I'll take the co-op stuff.

I know well of corn weights and moisture content. Grew up on a grain farm with irrigation. Many nights of staying up to make sure the driers were working properly. Just never paid attention to finding small screeners etc then and been a couple decades since we sold the grain farm then went to a sod farm. Local coop or large scale neighbors usually try and shoot for 13 percent around here. Someone is usually looking for dry but bad corn to feed larger boilers so my need of 150 bu is minor and easier to go two miles to elevator and fill up. Plus don't want to spend to much on improving that little corn. Plus sleeping on the idea I think I came up with a cheaper fast method.