Stinky Pellets

[sparkydog00]

I asked this question in another thread but no one seemed to want to answer it. So I will ask it again.
What makes some pellets stink?
I have a suspision that it is how they are and how long they are stored.
The smell can best be described as a musty crappy kind of smell.
I have gotten bags of pellets that stunk so bad you couldn't have them in any living area of your house.
Which is upseting to me considering my stove lives in my livingroom.

 

[Deed]

not sure but if they are sticky and smelling moldy, there has too be mositer present or something in the processing where old scrap lumber or logs wereused to make pellets out of.

 

[sparkydog00]

not sure but if they are sticky and smelling moldy, there has too be mositer present or something in the processing where old scrap lumber or logs wereused to make pellets out of.

I am thinking it is after the manufacturing process.
Though I remember the old Stove Chow used to smell like pencil shavings.
I think it is how they are stored. Like maybe they get next to the fertilizer in a hot trailer for a Summer.
The pellets aren't wet. Wet pellets puff...and dry to create lots of fines.
These just stink. And you can't smell it till you actually open the bag.

 

[Corie]

Lignetics pellets smell like oranges, maybe you should try them?

Pennington smells like cardboard and crayons. Better than mold?

You could burn inferno pellets, they are a corn/cedar blend and smell like a cedar closet.

 

[pegdot]

Pellets should smell like whatever kind of wood they are made from. Usually, that's not a very strong odor. I recently noticed a familiar smell in my house...fertilizer....after some sniffing around I traced it to a bucket of pellets sitting by the stove. The pellets came from Tractor Supply. Sure enough, when I went in the store the next time I took a peek into the store room and there were bags of fertilizer stacked next to the pellets. I think the pellets simply absorbed some of the smell. I'd bought 2 tons from them and I could smell it on the pellets for several days but it's faded now that a little time has gone by. They smell like wood again.

I think what you are smelling is likely a storage issue rather than a processing issue. If you have bags that smell you might try putting some open boxes of baking soda near the stack to absorb the odor.

 

[PelHeat Ltd]

Pellets should smell like whatever kind of wood they are made from. Usually, that's not a very strong odor. I recently noticed a familiar smell in my house...fertilizer....after some sniffing around I traced it to a bucket of pellets sitting by the stove. The pellets came from Tractor Supply. Sure enough, when I went in the store the next time I took a peek into the store room and there were bags of fertilizer stacked next to the pellets. I think the pellets simply absorbed some of the smell. I'd bought 2 tons from them and I could smell it on the pellets for several days but it's faded now that a little time has gone by. They smell like wood again.

I think what you are smelling is likely a storage issue rather than a processing issue. If you have bags that smell you might try putting some open boxes of baking soda near the stack to absorb the odor.

Pegbot is right, when we are making pellets from different biomass materials all sorts of smells come out. So its more likely the wood they are made from or storage conditions, mold is not really an issue if the pellets are still hard, however if they are breaking apart and becoming soft, there might be too much mositure around them and mold might be possible, but unlikely.