Grass Pellets on CL. Gasification video too.

[schoondog]

I have been using the golderod pellets ( a nice DJ product ) and mixing them 50/50 with a wood pellet (penningtons) for the last week. They have been going very well. I believe I will be able to reach my goal of cleaning the stove once a week, even though I did a quick clean yesterday since I lost power due to the storm. By the time I got home to get generator started stove was cool and I had a little time on my hands I checked it out and cleaned up. Wasn't as ashy as I thought it may have been. Heat has been good, 145-160* on low/ medium ranges. This is fine for shoulder season duty. House is very warm. Glass has been dirty no matter how much comb. air I give it. Small price to pay for using these pellets. The price is about $190-200 a ton here in the land of $300 a ton wood pellets. I dried the coffee pellets at work for the last few days and they have become quite popular. As the guys go by the hot tank I have them on they flip the bag for me. Today a few of the guys had a pellet in hot water trying to revive it back into coffee. They have been calling me alexahenty (sic) on the radio. All in fun. I will burn my bag of coffee pellets tomorrow night or Saturday and get some readings. I am beginning to save some grounds now for batch #2. I will definitely be drying them out on this round.

Schoondog

Thanks to coffee man and jtakeman for the coffee!!

 

[Grassman]

Here is another read on roasting http://www.physorg.com/news186157583.html DJ

 

[jtakeman]

Here is another read on roasting http://www.physorg.com/news186157583.html DJ

DJ,

Interesting, But it sounds like they are saying to do the "torrefaction" before pelletizing the biomass.

For example, they want to know whether the deeply dried biomass is easier to compact into pellets or briquettes.

It will increase the density and reduce the moisture. Should increase the heat output of the end product. But will you be able to pelletize the grass with out the moisture in the feed stock? I wonder if you torrefied the pellets after pelletizing if it would have the similar results. It probably wouldn't increase density, But would reduce the moisture content anyway.

I am willing to play if you are.

jay

 

[Grassman]

Jay I have experimented with roasting the grass density heat transfer challenges need lots more work on this although it is probably the future, with torrification you can unify your feed stock so theoretically you can take all types of biomass and make a good pellet. It has real potential as a fuel for power plants because it will not absorb any water you can co-fire with wet coal slurry's. The feed stock that I torrified last Feb March we left out in a pile still dry as a bone you cold go out today shovel off the snow and lite up the pile. My father burns the stuff by the pick up load in his big wood furnace he claims it burns just like coal. We need to have a long discussion about this you are on the track with the coffee blend becuase it is torrified . I am very intrested in the burn feed back on these pellets.

 

[jtakeman]

I am going to do a quick clean and I will toss them in. I will start with 30lbs for now to see how they go. Saved 20 lbs in case I need to mix them with some wood pellets.

Wish I knew the grass ratio on these. I will keep you posted and put up some burn pictures. Probably will not tally the ash on these. Getting a bit lazy here. I will save it for the goldenrods.

Got the craving for donuts again! Boston creme sounds nice!

 

[jtakeman]

Yahoo, I be burning coffee! They seem to burn pretty nice. So far so good. Nice bright orange/Yellow flame.

Temp average 226ºF Peaked at 241ºF

We started with wet grounds, I would bet the heat would come up if the moisture level was lower.

Here's a pick of the burn!

 

[Grassman]

Really good flame color your rite about moisture now the question is the ash? did you have to turn up the air? DJ

 

[jtakeman]

DJ,

Its the exact same as the wood pellets I was just running. I think I could actually reduce it a bit. But because of the grass I left it be. I am burning on low right now as the house is up to temp. Still a nice bright flame. I do see some light gray ash in the burn pot from the grass that is in the mix. But nothing major so far. I will run the full 50 lbs because its running so good.

Love to see what a drier mix with just some wood as a binder would do. But I am liking this batch so far! Hope we can reproduce this if we need to. We definetly need to control the mix so we can see what makes them tick as they say.

I hope coffee man tries his soon, He has the mostly wood mix.

jay

 

[Grassman]

Some video Stan Hirson shot last weekend while making pellets ,some of you met him he left early lots of steam from wet feed stock.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OI7aaiGLig If the snow ever stops I am going to dig out torrefied chip pile run it through the hammer mill and mix with some grass see how it burns. DJ

 

[schoondog]

Burned my coffee bag last night. 150-160* discharge temp. on medium (4 of 9 auto) Had the manual damper open a little wider than I would for a good wood pellet and about the same as the 50/50 grass/wood. Not much hotter than the golderod/ wood pellets have been doing. I was hoping the coffee would be a little hotter, but I think if I get the grounds dry and get them into the hammermill with the grass, the pellet would be homogenized and better formed and hopefully hotter. Ash was not really a problem, but I would rather burn a few bags before making a statement about coffee ash. I hope I can get enough grounds dried to burn a few bags before the heating season is over.

Schoondog

 

[Grassman]

Scoon. Sounds good I have a big old wood stove here we could rig up to dry the grounds. I am going to see a few of the local DD shops drop some pails off. Because of the water in the grounds we never really got your pellets dense enough. I think the dense wood coffee blend pellets went to Ct. So I guess we will have to make some hot pellets to melt some of this snow here in NY.

Also for any one who wants to burn these pellets before heating season is over I am dropping the price to $150/ton. DJ

 

[jtakeman]

I had 1 bag of the dense wood/coffee blend, But for the most part they fell apart. coffee man burned some, Were is he? I will bug him to post his results!

I will try to burn a bag of the goldenrods sometime this week and post the results.

Edit:

Here is the Ash from the coffee grass mix.

Volume is 38 ounces.

Weight 22.4 ounces

Percentage 2.8%

 

[ADVA]

Scoon. Sounds good I have a big old wood stove here we could rig up to dry the grounds. I am going to see a few of the local DD shops drop some pails off. Because of the water in the grounds we never really got your pellets dense enough. I think the dense wood coffee blend pellets went to Ct. So I guess we will have to make some hot pellets to melt some of this snow here in NY.

Also for any one who wants to burn these pellets before heating season is over I am dropping the price to $150/ton. DJ

Looking forward to seeing what you pros make in a higher BTU coffee pellet.
These ones your selling at 150ton.
Does anyone have a test on them?
Looking for the ash content/makup of these too.
I wonder what kind of a pellet a tea bag could make.
Say a coffee/tea combo?
This way everyone is satisfied!

 

[ADVA]

Okanagan's/Turman's/Barefoots/Green Team/Somerset/Dragon Mtn./Spruce Pts./Pure Fire:
Heading out to East PA from N NJ on Wednesday afternoon.

I never burned any of these pellets & want to give them a try.

Will be traveling 80W thru NJ & on 611/512/191 thru Bangor on into Nazareth PA.

These are hard to get in NJ.
Hoping someone could point me in the right direction :cheese:

 

[imacman]

Well, the coffee test is on for me in about an hour. I'm only burning the stove on 1-1 today, since it was 47 °F out, but the hopper is almost empty, and I just whipped-up a batch of 50/50 coffee pellets and Lignetics hardwood. I'm going to try this first, before trying all coffee......we'll see.

BTW, I really think we need to dry & hammermill the coffee before pelletizing.......they didn't lock-up too well.....massive amount of "fines" in my bag. They seem kinda soft, but not as bad as I thought they'd be.

I'll report back when I get a "handle' on how they burn.

 

[Grassman]

I scraped up some of the leftover dry coffee dregs under the mill this after noon and sent them back through. Made a nice pellet. I put some in the gasifier smoked black needed more air. Definitely more dense fuel than the grass. Key is to dry then hammer and mix. Need more coffee now several hundred lbs so we can mix up a 1 ton batch then run it .

 

[schoondog]

I'm trying to find time to get buckets together to start saving in larger quantity. Got a few stores that said they would save the grounds and I have a place to dry them. Never have any time though, always rushing around. Got some saved though. Hopefully have a few more done by the end of the week.

Schoondog

 

[jtakeman]

I have been playing a bit with the wood/grass pellets mix. I started with 60/40 pellets/grass and burned about 80 LBS. or so. I am using Currans which I purchase at lowes with a 10% off coupon.(Currans base heat was 228ºF and ash amount was about 0.48%) SORRY No pictures of the jars of ash. I am getting lazy and ready for spring. All stove settings were the same as the other tests.

Results: "Still to much ash to deal with but very close".

Heat average was 223ºF

Ash volume was 34 ounces

Ash weight was 21.89 ounces

Ash percentage was 1.71%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

So I then tried the 75/25 pellets/grass mix. Again I burned about 80 lbs. or so.

Results: "Acceptable". Pretty close to the corn ash percentage.

Heat average was 226ºF

Ash volume was 28 ounces

Ash weight 16.128 ounces

Ash percentage was 1.26%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Looks like I could burn them at 25% to 30%, Should work decent. I am going to burn a 6 bag(240 lbs.) run at 25% and see what its like. That's about a weeks worth or more with this warm weather. Looks like I may buy some grass pellets to extend my wood pellet usage! Then I will try the goldenrod pellets to see what there ash percentage is.

Is it spring yet??????????????????????????????????????????

 

[andyc]

Jay,what's the price for the grass...no pun intended.
Andy

 

[jtakeman]

DJ's last price announcement was $150/ton. a deal if the stove you have can handle the increased ash.

 

[Grassman]

Hi guys, Looks like blending is a good option . One customer is burning in the big TSP furnace King LX ? Is that the model.? big hopper. Had too much ash straight so now is burning a mix of 5 bags grass 2 bags corn. No more ash problems. He turned fuel feed down to 2. I am trying to get him to join the list. Yes the price is 150 ton . DJ

 

[jtakeman]

Hey DJ,

I have been trying to join the iburncorn forum, But there slow taking new entries. Figure I'd see if there is some interest there for the grass and your other ventures in pellet making. I will let you know when I am in and see who is interested in them.

I will try a corn grass mix if the temps stay low, But with this weather I am only burning a little bit in the morning and maybe some in the afternoon. Otherwise the stove is off, Which is nice!

Burn grass(well some anyway) not gas!
jay

 

[schoondog]

I have been mixing the goldenrod with wood pellets 50/50 and its working well. My plan for next year is to purchase 2 tons of good, hot pellets and then mix in 50% grass/goldenrod/coffee ( 1 ton ) mix for shoulder season. I still want to check my chimney for ash/? buildup before I pull the trigger. I hope I can score on 3 full open top 55 gallon drums to hold DJs pellets. We will see what happens. Hoping for a good late spring/summer deal on good pellets.

Schoondog

 

[lmjr]

I realize you guys are just "Testing" some alternative "Bio Fuels" here now...couple bag of this and that...but
if you were to eventually get into some quantities (tons), do you have the vent pipe to handle the corrosion?

Outside of the basic wood pellet fuel the corrosion factor with other "Bio Fuels" will do a number on the 304 Stainless Steel commonly used in vents.

If you're already using a Multi-fuel Stove for Corn/Pellet and have a vent rated for that, you're not so bad off.

Just thinking here.

 

[jtakeman]

I realize you guys are just "Testing" some alternative "Bio Fuels" here now...couple bag of this and that...but
if you were to eventually get into some quantities (tons), do you have the vent pipe to handle the corrosion?

Outside of the basic wood pellet fuel the corrosion factor with other "Bio Fuels" will do a number on the 304 Stainless Steel commonly used in vents.

If you're already using a Multi-fuel Stove for Corn/Pellet and have a vent rated for that, you're not so bad off.

Just thinking here.

Warnings were already covered on post #19 by Red Alert Eric! My vent is rated for the fuels I am burning and has 316 SS inner liner. Stove is also rated for grass,corn, High bark pellets, and so on!

Not an issue with my install as I planned ahead. Good warnings to others as to match the vent setup to the fuels in use or future use. If the vent isn't rated for the fuels, I don't recommend burning them either. Safety first is the rule to follow!