Sand in my chow

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livefreeordie

Member
Nov 21, 2010
207
Rochester, NH
It looks like sand, feels like sand but when i grind it between my fingers most of it breaks down. Any idea what this stuff might be? Does anybody else find this stuff in their burn pot?
 

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So that's what a clinker looks like! never had this issue before. Is it because of poor raw material being used?
 
If you have a propane torch gather those up in a pile on a non combustible surface outdoors and torch them just to make sure it is all mineral.

But as clinkers go those would be classified as babies and if tossed out of the pot by the air flow as not a problem.
 
So i don't have to worry about them destroying any internal moving parts?
 
livefreeordie said:
So i don't have to worry about them destroying any internal moving parts?

Was that in your hooper or in your ash?

They are not clinkers unless they result from burning.

If that was in the bags or on the bags then you have a matter to take up with the pellet maker or the place you bought them from or yourself if the stuff was from say your yard.
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
livefreeordie said:
So i don't have to worry about them destroying any internal moving parts?

Was that in your hooper or in your ash?

They are not clinkers unless they result from burning.

If that was in the bags or on the bags then you have a matter to take up with the pellet maker or the place you bought them from or yourself if the stuff was from say your yard.

They were in the burn pot, so far my stove chow has little to no fines which i can't say about my Greene team.
 
livefreeordie said:
So that's what a clinker looks like! never had this issue before. Is it because of poor raw material being used?

No not really, You need to melt that all together to get a clinker. If you crank the heat up some they might form a good one.

The lighter pieces are probably chlorides and the darker brown ones are most likely carbon deposits. Wood absorbs minerals from the soil they are growing in. Some grown in marsh/swappy area's tend to have more. Trees grown in a brakish region will have more chlorides(salt). So depending on where Energex recieved the fiber from for the batch of pellets your burning. If there is sand in it it could be from the yard. The chips are dumped on the ground and them trasported to the mill. If they scooped up some dirt/sand it will end up in the pellets. If the batch of fiber had lots of bark in it it will also end up in the pellet. Some will settle to the bottom of your burnpot. So, "yes" on the raw material!

We raved about the Stove Chow, Not so much for its quality, But more on how low a cost we paid for them. Many got middle of the road fuel at dirt cheap prices. So we were very happy. Some got sub par stuff, But were eased because they didn't pay all that much for them. I got middle of the road performance, But paid the cheapest price in town for them. So they were leaps above the other mid grade fuels that cost much more at the time. Seems the money factor will effect the overall enjoyment you get from a ton of heat in the bags. ;-)
 
OK so i'm not going to worry about them, thanks for the info everybody.
 
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