Wood Pellet Stove

ex-member BareThrills

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Dec 5, 2011
4,461
3
United Kingdom
At my last meet i used a briefcase BBQ and charcoal for my cooking needs. I found the BBQ buckled with the heat and was not impressed, I also wanted to find an alternate fuel and thought wood pellets would be worth a shot.

As luck would have it we did a party for my mums 60th and got through 2 helium cannisters. I cut one in half and used the bottom for the stove body

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next i drilled 4 holes for legs and some vent holes for my central chimney

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I used some long coach bolts for the legs

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As pellets are notoriously difficult to get going, i decided to use a mesh tube down the middle of the stove to keep them back from the vents in the bottom. I cannabalised one of those anti splatter frying pan covers which use woven stainless mesh. I cut it square, rolled it and used a staple gun to keep it together

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Filled with 500g of pellets

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Im forever whittling maya wood for reasons ill not go into but i used the leftover chunks dropped down the chimney to start the stove. It worked a treat.

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once the mayawood had burned out i was left with the wood pellets burning nicely. There was little or no smoke. as the wood pellets eventually start to burn from the top down, it does need a stir once in a while to maintain good heat but the benefit of this is that if you dont stir it you get a great heat for a simmer.

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I just need to fashion something to put my pot on now and ill be in business. At £2 for 10kg of pellets it will be cheap to run.
 

jacko1066

Native
May 22, 2011
1,689
0
march, cambs
Thats a really cool idea mate!!
Depending on the diameter you may be able to get a round bbq grill like they use on the small bucket bbq's you can buy from tesco etc!!
Couple of quick questions on the wood pellets,
do you think they would work in a Honey stove? If I say got the fire going then gradually filled it up with the wood pellets?
How longer burn time do you get from them?
And lastly where do you get them from? I have never heard of them before!!
Cheers and thanks for sharing
Steve
 

ex-member BareThrills

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Dec 5, 2011
4,461
3
United Kingdom
Thats a really cool idea mate!!
Depending on the diameter you may be able to get a round bbq grill like they use on the small bucket bbq's you can buy from tesco etc!!
Couple of quick questions on the wood pellets,
do you think they would work in a Honey stove? If I say got the fire going then gradually filled it up with the wood pellets?
How longer burn time do you get from them?
And lastly where do you get them from? I have never heard of them before!!
Cheers and thanks for sharing
Steve

i dont see why they wont work in a honey mate especially if you are adding them to a twig fire slowly. I just did it the way i did to make it easier to light. the key will be not to suffocate the bottom vents as this will slow the burn. the pellets burned for an hour but i did let it go back to a smolder and then stir to reignite. plenty of time to cook a full meal though if needed.

got them at http://www.corleybiowood.co.uk/ but i hear that cat litter in tesco and asda is made from the same stuff and its about the same price.

if you are coming to the rough close meet ill be bringing it along
 

jacko1066

Native
May 22, 2011
1,689
0
march, cambs
i dont see why they wont work in a honey mate especially if you are adding them to a twig fire slowly. I just did it the way i did to make it easier to light. the key will be not to suffocate the bottom vents as this will slow the burn. the pellets burned for an hour but i did let it go back to a smolder and then stir to reignite. plenty of time to cook a full meal though if needed.

got them at http://www.corleybiowood.co.uk/ but i hear that cat litter in tesco and asda is made from the same stuff and its about the same price.

if you are coming to the rough close meet ill be bringing it along

Cheers for the info mate,
No unfortunatley I wont be at Rough close, Iv got a weddng to attend, MINE lol!!
Cheers
 

Peat

Forager
Aug 29, 2008
178
0
West country
Seems to work well, but why use pellets? I can understand them for hopper fed boilers, where standard sizing is required but is it really necessary here? There is nothing on the website about where their wood is sourced from. Could well be tropical hardwood... Wouldn't it make more sense to use locally sourced coppice wood, tree surgery waste, garden twigs of coppiced charcoal?

No offense meant, but I just don't really get it...
 

ex-member BareThrills

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Dec 5, 2011
4,461
3
United Kingdom
Ive not really got a problem with any of what you say, it was just a fuel source i wanted to try, its compact to carry, its cheap, it burns clean and leaves very little ash. Im just as happy to burn other stuff but if i was doing that i would design the vents differently.
 

swright81076

Tinkerer
Apr 7, 2012
1,702
1
Castleford, West Yorkshire
These wood pellets really are a swine to get going, but once the temperature is up with other fuel, chuck on the pellets and they go well. Ask chiseller about his glowing stainless steel stove.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
 

dancan

Nomad
Sep 29, 2007
271
0
Nova Scotia Canada
I've been laid up for the past little bit with a broken fib/tib at the ankle so I've spent a lot of time reading lots of posts all over the internet and when I came across this video I thought I'd better post it here , sorry about it not being in english but it is self explanatory and I think it might even spur on some more ideas , if not , well I think it's still kind of cool .

[video=youtube_share;GV0WDudP538]http://youtu.be/GV0WDudP538[/video]
 

wattsy

Native
Dec 10, 2009
1,111
3
Lincoln
you can do it with sawdust as well mate stick a bit of wood down the middle to keep the vents open open then ram loads of sawdust around it. pull out the wood and stick a spill of paper in the middle and light it and bob's your uncle
 

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