I recall seeing a post last year saying that the Greene Team Platinum pellets are the same as everything else packaged by Greene Team. Perhaps I recall incorrectly.
I decided to try them for myself this year to see if there is a difference. I burned three tons of Green Team Premium from Loews last year and other than the dust, I was satisfied with them. I finished off the remainder of last years supply, and I am finally into the new supply purchased this fall.
So, what did I see:
I decided to try them for myself this year to see if there is a difference. I burned three tons of Green Team Premium from Loews last year and other than the dust, I was satisfied with them. I finished off the remainder of last years supply, and I am finally into the new supply purchased this fall.
So, what did I see:
- The Platinum pellets are packaged in a much stronger plastic bag. This might not seem like much but the other bags were prone to small tears which result in a trickle of pellets leading from the garage to the stove.
- The Platinum pellets are, on average, much longer than the Premiums. Less variability in pellet length and longer average length. None of the pellets exceeded 1 1/8 inches with the majority being in the 5/8 to 1 inch range. I expected this to make them appear to burn less hot, but it did not.
- Almost no fines in the bag. While the Premiums often had between 1/4 to 1/2 cup of fines per bag, the five bags I burned over the last two days had at most 1/8 cup (two tablespoons) of fines. My MVAE doesn't care about the fines. My concern there is the cloud of wood dust that I saw each time I filled the hopper. There is still a little dust raised if I pour too vigorously, but not in the same class as before.
- The residue in the ash pan is less crusty than with the Premium pellets. I don't know that this means anything at all. I run the MVAE in manual mode at a high flame, +3 or higher out of a 0 to +5 range. I have never had a problem with the auto-clean mechanism or with hard to remove clinkers on the burn pot. There seems to be less material in the ash pan and what is there is softer. Not a quantified observation, just an observation.