Just finished a deal with a grass seed grower to use his Pellet Mill and mix plant to do some experimental work. We will be using waste wheat straw, and grass straw mixed with various amounts of glycerol as a binder. These will be tested in a new pellet stove, and we'll be looking at burn rate, combustion temps, and stack emissions. We'll also be using varying amounts of alfalfa, grass hay, and grains, with glycerol, to develop formulas for livestock feed. These will be fed to our own cattle, and will be looking at growth rate and internal parasites.

First pellets should be coming in about 30 days.

 

I hope I have your energy when I'm that old. Heck, I wish I had your energy now......man you've got a lot of irons in the fire.

 

Fab u been smelling too many fumes while running the processor. Man I told u to smell the roses not the methanol. I know we are about the same age so send me some of whatever it is u are taking. Great job but slow down none of us on the forum can afford to loose you dont know what we would do without OH GREAT GURU GEEZER.

 

You are indeed amazing Fabman

Don't forget to take a look at chimney deposits too while you're at it

 

I'll have lots of time to rest when I'm DEAD!


I just wish I had my "wasted youth" back


Jeep, get off your butt and get to work

Cookie, We haven't even talked about the 2 hot-rods my son and I are working on, or the dragboat the 460 is ready for....................

 

So Cool Fab!!! We have both wheat straw and bluegrass hay...need any?? LOL!!! Actually, we sell our bluegrass straw to a hay baler and don't bale our wheat straw. But...if there's a need, we can fill it.

As always, you're a gem!!! Forever exploring and inventing. YOU DA MAN!!!

 

Heard that.....

I'm ready - just got to find a place to set up! I'm looking for someone local who has the space & needs the fuel, but finding no takers.

I figured out a way to make the space to set it up at my place, but its gonna' require a lot of work - most of which is gonna' have to wait for drier weather

 

VERY COOL!!!
The wife and I just brought a ton of pellets home to finish the winter. The store in Dallas bought a truck load quantity and sold it all in one day. None of the other stores inside of a 1 hour driving radius of our house could even get pellets. I hope this works, those of us that burn pellets can't depend on the wood products industry for feed stock but we sure can depend on America's farmers.
Bravo Fabman

 

Fabman,
What ever happened with the straw pellets? Not that you don't have enough iron's in the fire!!! Just wondering.

 

My partners cancer and death put most everything on hold. Things have changed now tho. Earls family have deceided to follow his wishes and will be putting up a signifigant amount of cash into our company to further my research.

We will be building a 100,000 gallon per year biodiesel Pilot Plant at the Ranch, and I've already ordered a new pellet mill and related equipment.

There will be a massive amount of remodeling to the 100 year old Ranch house, which will become a "Bed and Breakfast", a brand new building for the bio plant, and the chance to use the new plant as a model for farmers from all over the country! I think my work load just got bigger..........

 

Fabman,
My hat is truely off..
Had I the ambition you've displayed, we may have been living next to a wind farm instead of 82 new houses (couldn't find investors to buy the land from a defunct orchard on top of the mountain)..
I am very happy to see biodiesel production picking up, even if it has to be done by ranchers and home owners (can't see the oil companies doing much).
Bottom line is Anything that takes $ out of the middle east and that nut Chavez in the south is a step in the right direction.

 

be careful when you run the stuff on the pelletmill. You might want to verify the die that you will be using. fiber is real hard on mills in fact the wood mills have heavier gearing because of the added problem of trying to rebond wood fibers. bull gears and pinion gears are not cheap and if you crack one look out. let me know how it turns out.

 

I've got quite a bit of experience with pellet mills, we use them around here to make feed pellets for cattle. I have noticed that when we use Molasses in the pellets it's much easier on the dies. I think the glycerol will do the same.

 

I understand. What kind of mills are you running? CPM, Sprout? I worked in feed mills for about 10 years plus my Dad retired from purina so i have been around them for awhile too but i have been out of that line of work for about 10 years now. I have never ran any wood/type pellet. but have run a bunch of other stuff but strictly from a maintenance standpoint never formulation. We just had to fix the things when they got a little crazy with urea or some of that binder crap. Well good luck. If you need any parts let me know. I also run a little millwright service spectializing in small plant support. I can get some decent deals on rolls and such.