Here's One For All You Pellet Only Burners, How About Some Corn?

[drizler]

Mine is a true multifuel and I have typically burned only corn in it till a couple months ago when my pellet grinder arm busted. I went ahead and ran it without the auger which they said couldn't be done. It worked and pretty well at about half the noise. Since I had a couple bags of pellets of pellets I decided to mix em and came up with a formula by which the pellets burn some way enough to keep the corn from turning into a clinker. The ratio is 5 to 1 corn to pellets. Use that mix and the stove runs at least as well as it did before and is a lot easier to maintain. The key benefit is so much less noise. Cleaning the back of the beast where the junk tends to settle is a snap since the only headache is removing the cursed auger. Now it just pops apart. No more volcanic fallout all over the deck anymore either, it stays in the tray or the clinker. The only down side is yanking out the clinker once a day which isn't any more messing around in there than there was before so it all works out the same to me. I never was much on the leave it run for 3 days on low thing anyways as it always seemed to shut down sometime anyways from the stirrer breaking up the fire too much sometime or other.
Anyways, thats about the mix to burn corn in a pellet stove if some of you are finding pellets to be too expensive or unavailable. If I lived in the Midwest I wouldn't even have a pellet only stove but I see some folks do. Run that ratio or something close to it and a pellet burner should burn corn pretty darned well, its just dirtier and needs cleaning more often. The trade off is that it requires cleaning more often but is lots cheaper to operate. The only difference in heat output is that its hotter so that with mine you just don't run it on Max heat burning corn. Not rocket science at all. My stove is somehow magically rated by the manufacturer to run good old "P VENT to burn corn. In three years all I see is some staining on the inner liner, nothing more burning 4-6 tons a year. I will get around to welding the auger sometime or mabe even buying a new one but not anytime soon.

 

[jtp10181]

That sounds like something I've never seen before. Excuse me but all I am used to is Quad's gravity fed style. Where the auger pulls the pellets up and then they drop (by gravity) into the pot. Also their augers are totally silent. I was working on one just last week and I had to strain to hear if the auger was going.

Is this what you have? (broken link removed to http://www.magnumheat.com/countryside.cfm)
They have been promoting that thing a lot on the radio around here. Would be cool to know more about it. They have a manual on there I can donwload and read.

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Just looked at the manual....
Why does the fuel need to be stirred?

Also at the end it says there is a 5yr warranty on steel components. If you have to weld something to fix it, you might just be able to get a new one for free from the dealer.

 

[drizler]

Yup Thats the one. A couple guys on the iburncorn group swear all theirs did was make a big mess and they have way more expericnce with these stoves than I do. Still, it works and seems to work well. The only thing I haven't done is run it on full for more than a couple hours since it happened rather late in the winter. Those stoves are far from fire and forget anyways and using one successfully is something of an art form and they don't have the autostart and other bells and whistles. On the other hand they are rugged and can do about anything with the right combination of settings if you are patient. Last season you could get one off Zooblers for around $2K minus the pipe and goodies which was a real deal. The big offense with this stove is the corn soot fallout. There is a lot of it. I pretty much cured mine by going through the soffit and letting it dump on the roof where it blows away but the no auger method probably takes care of it just as well. Another grinder stove issue is soot on the ceiling. I am looking at mine right now and it seems likely that pulling the auger stops it. With a Countryside there is no way to shut off the blower so if you open the door for any reason some soot on the sill goes airborne into the room. Without putting that blower on a switch there is no other way to prevent it. Auger removal is likely to prevent or greatly reduce it at the very least.
I have seen posts from more than a few guys last winter who could get their hands on a good second hand Englander for under 500 for a second unit or backup but wanted to burn corn as they are all over the place it seems and marked down or being sold used. For that sort of $$ its a reasonable option for a second stove or backup except that its not rated for the much cheaper corn. I have heard of guys running corn mixed with pellets for years sucessfully in pellet burners and while I wouldn't do it myself if I was worried about warranties its viable otherwise. No more stove stuff now, wifey is draggin me out to change the swimmin pool liner, oh crap.............................

 

[jtp10181]

We burned straight corn on the new Mt Vernon AE in our showroom and boy was it messy. No mess outside the stove but after a day the entire inside was lined with corn ash. The next morning after it cooled off I sucked it all up with our central vac. I imagine after a couple day without cleaning there would be so much ash in there the stove would no longer be able to function.

I still don't understand what the fuel stirring thing is for on that Magnum. Does it just help get a more complete burn? Does it spin all the time or just at intervals?

 

[begreen]

Driz, have you tried the clean-burn corn additive? According to the literature, that is "supposed" to make the corn burn much cleaner and virtually eliminate corn clinkers.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

I still don't understand what the fuel stirring thing is for on that Magnum. Does it just help get a more complete burn? Does it spin all the time or just at intervals?

stirring the corn helps achieve a cleaner burn and retard clinker buildup as the corn will try to clump together, also the fingers on the stirrer come in contact with the corn and cause it to "crack " which allows easier combustion as corn burns best from the inside out

 

[Jabberwocky]

We burned straight corn on the new Mt Vernon AE in our showroom and boy was it messy.

What's your opinion on running a mix with wood pellets in the Mt Vernon?

 

[titan]

JTP-how exactly does the MT.VERNON work?Do you simply adjust your t'stat based on the type of fuel you load in the hopper?The whole premise sounds really convenient.Oh,is one particular fuel much better than another?

 

[jtp10181]

The stat works directly with the control board on the unit. It comes preset with 5 fuels and you just pick which one you are burning. It adjusts the feed rate and cleaning cycles to accommodate whatever fuel you pick. I think this is what it has preprogrammed.

Premium Pellets
Utility Pellets
Corn
Wheat
Sunflower Seeds

The only bad thing is that the convection blower seems to always run on high, not the quietest thing in the world.

 

[titan]

Sounds almost too easy?I don't have a Quad dealer any where near me but they're on my short-list for when I can'twon't burn wood anymore;still have quite a few splitting years in me yet though-I hope.

 

[restorer]

Most pellet stoves are limited to the use of wood pellets. Newer stoves have some optional controls and features that allow burning pellet like fuels made from switch grass distillers grains and a host of other experimental fuels. They are the state of the art stoves. Some work and some don't. It's important to not confuse what can actually be burned in your stove with the speculators. The controls and safety features on your stove are set for the type of fuel the manufacturer recommends. For example some stoves will burn only premium pellets, others can burn combination of pellets and corn and some can burn straight corn.

I experimented in one of my stoves early this year with corn. I found it not a useful fuel in my stove. It increased smoke, gummed the burn pot doubled the size of the daily clinker adn added to the difficulty in cleaning the stove. More importantly the fuel was 3-4 times more expensive than pellets. I am sure that is a local phenomenon.

For those with new stove under warranty, using a non approved fuel will void your warranty. Plus, if you make a mess of your components, ie. auger, burn pot, starter, it would get real spendy

My stoves are cheap, but I would not use any of the high sugar fuels. I will try switch grass, distillers grain, soy beans, and any of the dry farmed fuels available (hopefully) locally, at the right price.

 

[Corie]

The stat works directly with the control board on the unit. It comes preset with 5 fuels and you just pick which one you are burning. It adjusts the feed rate and cleaning cycles to accommodate whatever fuel you pick. I think this is what it has preprogrammed.

Premium Pellets
Utility Pellets
Corn
Wheat
Sunflower Seeds

The only bad thing is that the convection blower seems to always run on high, not the quietest thing in the world.

No cherry pits!?

 

[jtp10181]

They talked about it in all the hype, they even said 7 fuels. But then when I loaded up the showroom display there was only 5 :down:.

Quadrafire is full of mystery these days... they still dont have thier new products on thier webpage which bothers me.

 

[drizler]

I agree that corn is more messy, no argument there. Its also hotter, you can feel the difference, anyone can. One thing I do appreciate is the smell of the corn outside. It smells nice compared to the somewhat stinky smell of pellet smoke and cherry pits just plain stink. The big thing in favor of corn is the price. Until this year it was virtually half even here in the price burdened NE. In exchange for that you get to dump the ash bin every 2-4 days and knock down the built up crud. For some reason the 5 to 1 ratio of corn to pellets does make it burn somewhat cleaner though its not the nice neat flyash pellets deliver. Still there isn;t much difference in amount and either gets dumped in my driveway . I agree with Mike about the stirrer serving to break the corn up which it does. Problem is that it also tends to break up the coals and put the fire out when its on low. Simply put I would like it if it was on a rheostat as the slowest rotation on the Coungtryside is often still too fast. I began shutting mine down quite a bit a year ago and for the most part the stove ran as well or better. Like I said the pellet mix seems to do as good a job at least with dry corn. One thing I have noticed with the Countryside is how versatile it can be if you are willing to experiment a bit.