Pellet collection

[Vinculum]

I don’t know why, but I save a bag of pellets from every season, so I have this collection thing happening. Anyone else have issues like me? Lol.

I can never get the same ones every year anyhow. My favorites are always the softwood variety, but I never had problems with the hardwoods other than a bit more cleaning to do. This year it’s Green Supremes from Home Depot. My area gets the Allegheny Mountain Hardwood version. $277/ton of you but 4 and I used PayPal with a peticular credit card to get 5% cash back.

 

[tlc1976]

That’s cool. I would probably just keep an empty bag for reference. Put them on a wall like a quilt and keep adding to it. If you want to remember the consistency for comparison purposes, keep a handful of each in a labeled ziploc bag.

My stove only has an air damper, no other adjustments. So I’m not into burning varieties. I find a great burning pellet and stick with it.

One thing I like to do is see if I can find the longest pellet. Sometimes I’ll dig around and break long pellets, and if I find an exceptionally long one I’ll take a picture. Longest one previously was 2 1/8. This year I found one 2 1/4.

 

[Washed-Up]

Great idea…and I wish we had that selection

 

[bogieb]

I usually have a variety of pellets because I scrounge CL and FB Market for deals during the off season. I also sometimes buy new brands (to me) tha t pop up at the local hardware store when I have a coupon/rewards. Anything that isn't used gets buried when I get buy the balance . I keep 2-3 tons in my basement and the rest in the garage, and tend to refill my stacks before I clear a pallet. Last spring I had to make a conscious effort not to refill my largest pallet (it holds a row of 7 bags instead of 5), so that I could use up the original Okie golds that I bought back in 2016.

Currently in my collection are GS (northeast blend - wish we got Allegheny around here), MWP/TSC, Cubix, Orford (HW), logik e and Fusion (lauzon) HW at the bottom of first stack

 

[Jeremy6500]

The brand stores carry around here fluctuates a lot throughout the heating season. I need to start saving a bag and writing a summary of how they worked on it.

I know someone that works at the local Farm/Hardware store. They were clearing out their remaining 4 pallets of last years pellets to make room for this years shipment that would be arriving any day. He said they got approval to sell them by the pallet at $150 a pallet/ton.

I was gonna jump all over it and asked what brand they were. They were "Energy Pellets of America". I thought they sounded familiar and did a Google search for any reviews of them. I came across this thread on Hearth

Wood Pellets of America

The Family Farm store near me started carrying these this year. I would not recommend them. I ran quite a few bags through my PP130 and they soot things up bad. Instead of the light fly ash, they coat everything with layer of black almost crispy/crunchy soot/ash. It builds up quickly and causes...

www.hearth.com

It was a thread by me from April of 2021 where I had tried some of them and they were terrible.......

I passed on the $150 pallets even though it was a heck of a deal,

 

[Vinculum]

One thing I like to do is see if I can find the longest pellet. Sometimes I’ll dig around and break long pellets, and if I find an exceptionally long one I’ll take a picture. Longest one previously was 2 1/8. This year I found one 2 1/4.

That’s great! I’ve come across some pretty long pellets before. Should have had a contest too. 😂

 

[bogieb]

The brand stores carry around here fluctuates a lot throughout the heating season. I need to start saving a bag and writing a summary of how they worked on it.

I know someone that works at the local Farm/Hardware store. They were clearing out their remaining 4 pallets of last years pellets to make room for this years shipment that would be arriving any day. He said they got approval to sell them by the pallet at $150 a pallet/ton.

I was gonna jump all over it and asked what brand they were. They were "Energy Pellets of America". I thought they sounded familiar and did a Google search for any reviews of them. I came across this thread on Hearth

Wood Pellets of America

The Family Farm store near me started carrying these this year. I would not recommend them. I ran quite a few bags through my PP130 and they soot things up bad. Instead of the light fly ash, they coat everything with layer of black almost crispy/crunchy soot/ash. It builds up quickly and causes...

www.hearth.com

It was a thread by me from April of 2021 where I had tried some of them and they were terrible.......

I passed on the $150 pallets even though it was a heck of a deal,

I keep a spreadsheet of how different pellets run in my stoves. Because of the way the P61a is run, there are some pellets it just doesn't run well - mostly high-end pellets. This is totally due to circumstances, nothing to do with the stove. I also keep a log of the top temps they reach in the P43 (using certain settings). Those that run colder are used during shoulder season and those that run hotter are run in the really cold weather.

I have 36 different brand/flavors on my spreadsheet at this point. Some of them are repeats if it was several years between batches (or different sku for Currans/GS/TSC). I track the following: Brand, type (HW, SW, blend), top temp in the P43, sku, notes (where bought/how much) and other notes like if ashy or leaves residue.

Yes, I'm a nerd.

 

[tbear853]

It was a thread by me from April of 2021 where I had tried some of them and they were terrible.......

I passed on the $150 pallets even though it was a heck of a deal,

Terrible pellets ... even if free, are not such a great deal when you wake up to a smoking stove choking mess at 5AM . It was aweful. So much unburned charred mess in the ash pan it was plumb full, and it was the first bag of 8 I bought to try. Shut the stove off entirely, go back to bed and let it cool,. There went 7 bags to the dumpster.

 

[Jeremy6500]

Terrible pellets ... even if free, are not such a great deal when you wake up to a smoking stove choking mess at 5AM . There went 7 bags to the dumpster. It was aweful.

That's for sure!!

Instead of ash in my stove these pellets produced a black semi-sticky soot that coated everything. It built up so bad in the exhaust that it insulated the proof of fire sensor to the point that it wouldn't register.

Usually have to clean the POF sensor area once a season. I had to do it twice in the matter of a few weeks.........never again.