Here’s how they look this year; Allegheny Mountain Blend. I’ll try and get some pics of them out of the bag. It’s hard to see in the pics; there’s a mix dark and light pellets in there. I turned the stove on Friday and churned through some Chows that were in the hopper from last season. I’ll get into these this week with the cooler temps. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
There's a butt ton of ash buildup in the burn pot (idk what's normal, this looks like a lot). And I agree with your assessment, a bit of dark and light.
You most likely got the Northeast blend, which is ironically, one of the least performing BTU-wise of the bunch according to their chart. How often do you scrape the pot and/or remove that "mustache" of ash? I usually swipe the mustache of ash off once a day, then scrape the pot every couple of days. I must admit, I got 5 bags of GS yesterday from the local Aubuchon's because I had a coupon for $7 off any $35 purchase. Brought the price down to reasonable. They will go in the P61a next, but probably won't hit for a couple of days since it has 100# or so in the hopper right now (with hopper extension). I'm sure I'll know exactly when they do hit by the ash production, versus what I've gotten so far from the TSC MWPs (and the hardwood Cleanfire's I had in there before).
Surprisingly, I got allegheny. I would have thought northeast, as that should have been cheaper to stock around here. I've been scraping it off the moustache vonce a day, but it only takes a couple of hours to get to that point. Just did an actual scrape down of everything inside. It wasn't awful, as I've only been running it a few days.
I currently have Appalachian flavor burning in my Quad and so far has actually been GREAT! I have two more bags of Appalachian then the Allegheny are next on deck.
I'll bet my stoves would love the App - they love hardwoods. They might even like the Alleghany since they are HW too.
They burn so good, I'm going to grab more bags (if they have them)........even though I don't "need" more pellets but you know how it is
I got to try Appalachian last year and they where pretty good. This year I got a bag of Midwestern blend and Allegheny. Those weren't that great, Allegheny was a little better than Midwestern for me.
I got 5 bags of Green Supreme Northeast (GS) blend a couple of weeks ago. Testing them in my P43 shows that they burn fairly warm at 245* Temp is taken by oven thermometer wedged between the top lip and the door, directly in front of the air stream - not scientific at all, but does give a general idea. I keep the feed rate at 3 and the stove has to have been burning at least 20 minutes. I have been burning Okie Plats (OP's), bought last year, which have been burning at 250* However, I could immediately tell when the GS hit as they are super ashy compared to the Plats. I will also say that the GS pellets are slightly shorter than the OP's, and I never got any crunching noises from the feeder gate. I get that noise fairly frequently from the OP's. Which makes me tend to believe that more pellets go thru the auger when burning the GS. Plus, just looked in the hopper, and it seems I went thru a lot more pellets in 24 hours with the outside temp never below 30* - than the previous two days (burning OP's) with the temps rarely getting that high. Like I said, not a scientific test, but gives a general idea of how they burn in my situation.
as a general rule, i use feed rate #3 for small kernal size pellets and #4 for the standard longer stuff.. harman P61A.
I understand that a lot of people do that. I keep it on #3 unless the pellet is so bad it can't keep the house warm unless I up the feed rate (Therma Glo's). Despite the fact that the testing isn't scientific, I figure the parameters that I can control should be kept the same.
Think they are fibbing on the bags ash content. Should say less than 1% which we all know is a crap load..
Been burning the GS for a month, emptied my ash tray for the first time yesterday after almost 40 bags (harman p43). Idk what other pellets do, but I grew up burning wood, so that seems pretty clean to me. I seem to going through a little over a bag a day, which seems like a lot considering I only have about 900sqft on one floor, but it is pretty poorly insulated, and I like it 80 in the main room, so it's hard to say if I would be doing much better with a hotter pellet.
I don't think that is a lot of pellets for a poorly insulated house - especially keeping the room at that temp. I'm heating about 950 sq/ft on my main floor with a P43 and windy days my stove will chew thru more pellets even if it isn't that cold outside. Plus it seems it has been cloudy for weeks, so no solar gain to help. I must say, you are getting less ash than I did, but if I remember correctly, you scored Alleghenys, so they may not be the ash monsters that the Northeast blend is. Once the deep of winter hits, I tend to turn the P43 to stove temp for overnight and early morning (otherwise it is on a thermostat). At those times, I don't need hotter pellets (at a much heftier price usually) because I don't need big heat to be pushed, just consistent heat to stay comfortable and keep the stove from starting back up directly after it has shut down.
Have almost same sq ft as you( 800 down) with poorly insulated 90 yr old house and do bag and half a day easy on very cold days. Harman P61A. Sends heat up the stairs to 2nd floor around 67 degrees. Good sleeping weather. Set my harmy at 75 at get that downstairs. Also burn top softies so heat is roaring..