You can purchase special equipment to make wood pellets at home for your pellet stove. The manufacturing of wood pellets is straightforward. Like baking a cake, pellet making requires a recipe. However, producing the quality of pellet that will burn properly in a pellet stove is more difficult at home because of the details of measuring material quality, consistency and condition. Each process in production dictates the type of machinery you need. Some pellet mills are all-inclusive and make the pellets start to finish. Others do only a portion of the work, requiring separate equipment to prep and finish tasks.
Instructions
1. Reduce large pieces of wood to small chips. Once the wood is in 1-inch pieces, a hammer mill reduces the chips to sawdust consistency. It does this with a series of spinning blades, pulverizing the wood chips as they pass through a reservoir.
2. Move the sawdust to a drying unit. An all-inclusive pellet mill does this internally with a screw auger, conveyor or vacuum. If you do not have this sort of mill, you will move the sawdust manually.
3. Dry the sawdust to a 10- to 20-percent moisture consistency or according to your recipe. A dryer is an enclosed reservoir with a heating element. It is the most expensive part of the whole process of pellet production.
4. Mix the sawdust after it has dried to achieve an even consistency and density, getting rid of any clumps created during the drying process. Do this with an agitator of some kind, like a rolling drum.
5. Assess the condition of the sawdust according to your pellet recipe. Place the sawdust in a conditioning reservoir mixing unit. This is a container to which you add binding agents like vegetable oil. It mixes the sawdust into a thick slurry and applies heat again if necessary.
6. Press the sawdust slurry through the pellet mill. The pellet mill consists of a die and roller unit. A roller pushes the slurry through cone-shaped holes in the die. Pellets form as they exit the holes.
7. Separate the pellets by passing them through a sieve or screen. Pellets must be uniform in size and shape according to the recipe. Small crumbly pellets are dysfunctional in a pellet stove as they clog the auger mechanism, creating an inefficient burn.
8. Move the warm pellets to drying screens for a natural slow dehydration period. Pellets cooled too quickly will form cracks and crumble, so you can't use them. Store the solid pellets in sealed plastic bags in a low-moisture area.
