Help selecting a pellet stove.

[heehaw]

i buy whole corn in 50 pound bags to feed my critters: it "use" to be really clean, then about 8-10 years ago it started getting some trash in the bag, and now, well, lets just say when i toss out some corn to the ducks and geese, if the wind is blowing in your direction, the amount of "fine dust" will choke you. it would take a lot of cleaning to use this whole corn in a stove.
heehaw

 

[5030]

I get my corn locally. We aren't row croppers, we grow forage but I have my choice of local farmers to buy from. I have 1400 bushel capacity in each tank, a Westfield 60" grain leg to load it in and a KillBros gravity wagon to pick it up with. I "batch" clean my corn, that is, in small quantities as I unload it into 5 gallon plastic pails to take it in to be burned. I have seen on the market, corn cleaners using the cyclone method and your shop vacuum that will clean large quantities but they are expensive.

Some years have more trash than others. It also depends on what brand of combine the corn was processed in and what condition the seperators are in.

My personal preference is corn combined with a Case Axial Flow combine, Gleaner second and JD last. However, I prefer bailing wheat straw that was run through a JD combine rather than an axial flow as the axial flow processes the material it tends to chop the straw finer and it's harder to bale, but that's another thread. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[kevincook]

Daryl,

Do you have any trouble with rodents? How do you keep them out of the corn?

Thanks
Kevin

 

[5030]

Kevin:

Our corn is in grain tanks (GSI) off the ground, actually on a concrete slab. The bottom of the tanks are cone shaped with a shutter plate at the exit. GSI has a bucket spout that is an acessory that I have on each tank for 5 gallon buckets. The corn we are going to use goes in 30 gallon plastic garbage cans with tight fitting lids and a concrete block on top.

 

[Highbeam]

Even in the nasty wet weather, does the corn stay dry? I have fond memories of cleaning moldy nasty grain out of the bottom of theose things where the auger housing was.

With a big ol' storage tank, you could get a big truck out to fill it up all at once. Cool.

 

[5030]

Highbeam:

My GSI tanks have a cover that operates with a chain linkage from the ground. When closed, they seal well and there is a counterweight to keep the lid down. I fill mine with a 60' PTO driven Westfield grain leg.

One thing I do is when the tank is completely empty, I open the manhole on top, climb the ladder and take my pressure washer and clean it out. Then I leave the bottom shutter plate out and the manhole open for a few weeks so the interior is dry and clean. I sometimes get a little caking on the outside walls as a result of condensation but I never leave it in the tank and then refill it.

I have heard of big grain tanks where crews have had to go in and jackhammer the crust off the walls.

Tonight I read in the paper that the demand for pellet, pellet and corn combination and corn stoves is so great this year that manufacturers are weeks to even months behind in production. When I got my Englander over 10 years ago, I never thought they'd be as popular as they now are.

 

[kevincook]

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Corn, you mean like corn from the cob. Does it have a high energy content? I don't know if they sell corn fuel here. We grow lots of corn though. Perhaps it just does not get cold enough here to make it economical to do.

Yep. Whole kernel corn. As it comes right out of the field. It's called "shelled corn", and has to be dried to below 15% moisture content. (lower is even better). Can be bought direct from farmers for the cheapest price, or from grain elevators for a little markup.

This is a very quick comparison of different fuels:

1 BUSHEL OF SHELLED CORN = 5 GALLONS OF LP GAS
1 BUSHEL OF SHELLED CORN = 3.5 GALLONS OF FUEL OIL
1 BUSHEL OF SHELLED CORN = 140 Kwh OF ELECTRICITY
1 BUSHEL OF SHELLED CORN = 4.75 C.C.F. OF NATURAL GAS

A bushel of shelled corn for me is $1.60 and my fuel oil this year is about $2.80 per gallon, or $9.80 for the equivalent quantity of energy.

/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

This document has a nice chart with price guesstimates, just plug in your own dollars to get the real numbers. )</font>



I just read that the US has over 4 billion bushels of excess corn production each year. That is equivalent to 14 billion gallons of fuel oil or 250 million barrels. We are using about 20 million barrels of oil per day in the USA so this works out to around 3% of our total oil consumption. It doesn't sound like a lot but I wonder how that would affect the price of oil. Maybe it would at least stabilize the price some if we where to actually use it.

Does anyone know how much more production of corn we could have if any? Are we producing as much corn as possible or do we have much land that is sitting idle? Where else on the planet could we grow billions of bushels of corn? I really like the fact that this is a renewable energy source. The crop can be harvested every 180 days. Are there parts of the world that could grow two crops per year?

Just thinking,
Kevin

 

[5030]

Kevin:

If you read my previous posts, you will understand why you just can't buy corn from your farmer/neighbor. Besides, the price of $1.40 or $1.60 or whatever per bushel isn't the actual price paid to the farmer. You have to factor in contractual agreements, LDP and other variables.

Yes, hybrid corn is 180 days. Actually, due to genitcs, you can plant corn that will mature in less time or more time depending on factors such as weather and fertilizer needs. That brings us to a point. The price of fertilizer has at least doubled on a per acre basis in the last two years and corn is fertilizer intensive. You will see less corn planted in lieu of wheat and soybeans which take much less fertilizer for appreciable yeilds. This coupled with the increased interest in ethanol production and the building of ethanol production facilities will cause less non contracted corn to be available on the open market....in other words, corn that you as a consumer can buy to burn in your corn stove or biofuel stove if you prefer.

Corn is a good relatively cheap and renewable source of energy, but, as I stated in previous posts, you just can't go to your farmer/neighbor and buy a load of shelled corn and burn it. If they are a contracted grower, their product is spoken for. If they aren't, you aren't going to buy it for $1.40 or $1.60 or whatever. There are many other factors that control the price other than the price posted on the side of the elevator.

Everyone is searching for the cheap alternative to natural gas, propane and fuel oil. Every alternative energy source has it's pro's and cons. Corn as well as extruded recycled sawdust (pellet fuel) has it's advantages and disadvantages.

 

[To20Chris]

You'd have to look at the energy returned on energy invested. I belive if you look at how much oil you use to grow the corn for a given BTU output from a corn stove, you would find that you'd be better off just burning the oil.

 

[Highbeam]

That might be true from a global and long term perspective but for us, as consumers, the bottom line is the price per btu from corn compared to the price per btu from the other fuels today at the depot. What it takes to get the corn to market must be part of the purchase price. If someone is smart enough to cheaply produce btus then I'll buy them regardless of their profits/losses. Cost to produce vs. market cost is a problem for the producer and not the consumer, right?