Pellet producers - can you make oak, hickory, cherry, apple.....etc pellets?

[Fahrenheit]

I have a pellet fired BBQ/smoker. The pellets are very expensive for the kind of quantities i buy. If someone in the UK produced good quality oak, hickory, apple......pellets at a decent price you'd clean up.

 

How much could you supply a 10kg bag of hickory pellets for? If i were to buy wholsesale what kind of price can we do for what kind of quantity?

[renewablejohn]

There is no difficulty in producing wood pellets for a particular species so long as you can get the moisture content down to between 8 and 12%. The only real difference is a separate die for hardwoods and softwoods. Feed stock of a particular variety might be a problem but if you have a source for the timber than I could convert into pellets for £250 per tonne plus the cord price of the timber.

[Highland Forestry]

Thats roughly £3.00 per 10kg - BARGAIN.

 

John - would you be interested in having a chat with us about pellet supply in North Scotland? I'm on the look out for a supplier at the moment for a new project which will hopefully bring in regular orders for dumpy bags filled with pellets, or posbly 20kg sacks but we could take by the load.

 

Drop me an e-mail if you're interested - [email protected]

[Highland Forestry]

OOPS,

 

sorry for the derail Farenheit!!

[Fahrenheit]

That's very interesting as the pellet BBQ scene is quite small in the UK and i think the main issue is the price of pellets. Most pellet BBQs are used for smoking meats and they may run for 10-20 hours at a time. This gets pretty expensive at the current prices.

[Fahrenheit]

Does the moisture have to be down before producing the pellets or can they be produced and then dried?

 

also do we comes across much hickory in the UK?

[renewablejohn]

Does the moisture have to be down before producing the pellets or can they be produced and then dried?

 

also do we comes across much hickory in the UK?

 

Our normal operation is to produce logs with log processor straight into IBC containers. Put into solar kiln until moisture content less than 12% then chip using Hazohack chipper into hammer mill and then through pellet press.

 

If moisture content greater than 12% then pellet die will just block up. Once pellets produced they must be kept dry otherwise they will absorb moisture and expand. Hence reason there used for cat litter and horse bedding.

 

As for hickory I have only come across it when using my axe as a sledge hammer.

[renewablejohn]

OOPS,

 

sorry for the derail Farenheit!!

 

email sent

[Fahrenheit]

What about the food grade side of things. Someone has pointed out to me that they may have to be produced similar to food products with a dedicated machine only for food grade pellets and food grade lubricants etc? Does any of the machines lubricants get into the pellets themselves? I'd assume not.

 

I'm not sure if the rules on pellets for cooking with would be that strict as you are setting fie to them at the end of the day.

[renewablejohn]

What about the food grade side of things. Someone has pointed out to me that they may have to be produced similar to food products with a dedicated machine only for food grade pellets and food grade lubricants etc? Does any of the machines lubricants get into the pellets themselves? I'd assume not.

 

I'm not sure if the rules on pellets for cooking with would be that strict as you are setting fie to them at the end of the day.

 

There is oil mist used as a die lubricant but it could be vegetable oil rather than mineral oil.