Should You Consider Making Wood Pellets At Home?

When it comes to making pellets you may think that only large scale industrial pellet plants could possibly make pellets. Well this isn't the case, but that also doesn't mean that making quality pellets on a small scale say from home is easy. As with any process its partly down to the equipment you use and your raw material. Making quality pellets is no exception.

How you prepare your raw material is key. Fuel pellets can be made from many different raw materials, as you can see below. Say in this instance though we are talking about making wood pellets. You may have waste wood available, well first you need to reduce it in size and moisture content. To make quality pellets you need a consistent raw material with a particle size below 6mm and a moisture content below 15%. If the moisture content of the wood is very low moisture may be added in the pellet mill to achieve the required compression. However in many cases on a small scale a low moisture content is not the issue. Most wood and particularly virgin wood will have a moisture content about 40%. The best way to dry is with a high temperature and good ventilation. To increase surface area for drying it is best to chip the wood and then place it in a solar dryer if possible. Then the chips need to be reduced to 6mm particles, a small hammer mill or shredder can be used for this purpose. The material is now ready for the pellet mill. At PelHeat for small scale pelleting at the home or workshop or for research we have the mini pellet mill. You can see two videos of this small press on the next page. Unlike other small machines this uses a ring die instead of flat die. This means this mill uses less power and makes better pellets.

 The Wood Pellet Mill Production Guide © PelHeat Ltd - Should You Consider Making Pellets At Home?