Wood Pellet Grills and Hardwood Pellets

Cooking on a wood pellet grill is becoming a popular alternative to gas or charcoal grills. Many consumers agree the taste of the food cooked on a wood pellet grill is superior to anything they have previously tasted on a charcoal or gas grill. The reason for this is the type of fuel pellets used, and hardwood species.

You can obtain a wide range of food quality hardwood fuel pellets for your pellet grill. Hardwood cooking pellets can be made from apple, pecan, oak, hickory and many more. Each type of wood gives a different flavour to the food. There are several websites with tips on which types of hardwood pellet to use when cooking which type of food. This is one of the key reasons wood pellet grills are gaining a high reputation among the BBQ community. There are other advantages to wood pellet grills over your basic grills.

Wood pellet grills have a built in hardwood pellet fuel hopper on the side of the grill. At the base of the hopper there is an auger to meter in pellets to the burn pot. A hot rod igniter then lights the pellets, and a fan aids combustion. The wood pellet grills are also fitted with a thermostat. The thermostat will regulate the fire and pellet feed rate. This means that wood pellet grills can also be used as an oven to bake food. Another unique advantage of wood pellets grills is that they are able to smoke food. So you can produce your own smoke ribs or chicken for example. All in all wood pellet grills are a very flexible and unique way to cook your food, and achieve the best flavours possible.

Wood Pellets Fuel and Pellet Heating

The origins of wood pellet grills lies in wood pellet stoves and other wood pellet heating solutions. Some home heating fuel pellets are also made from hardwood residues, however from more abundant supplies. Softwood resources are also used for fuel pellets. However there is also a growing trend towards biomass fuel pellets, and biomass fuel pellets are the future of the pellet heating market to meet the required demands. Examples of biomass fuel pellets include wood, however it also includes all types of grasses and straws as well as purpose grown biomass. Hemp is a biomass energy source which is ideal for fuel pellet production. It has a very short crop rotation time of only 4 months, and pellets produce only slightly more ash than premium wood pellets, and a comparable ash percentage to most other wood pellet fuels.

Wood Pellet Production and Solutions

Many people today are interested in producing wood pellet fuels on a small scale for either home or business heating solutions, or even wood pellet grills. The process of producing wood or biomass pellets is not an exact science, as each raw material has slightly different characteristics during processing. The main factors which effect how well a pellet forms are moisture content and materials density and particle size. Too much or too little moisture and either the lignin will not melt to bind the pellets together or the process will not reach the required temperatures to melt the lignin. The aim must also be to achieve a final moisture content in the pellet of 10% or below, with many pellets products having a moisture content of around 6%. Producing more heat and less ash.

PelHeat Wood Pellet Production Guide

At PelHeat we have many years of experience in pellet production, and we provide a pellet production consultation service. The PelHeat guide download will show you how to make wood and other fuel pellets.

 The Wood Pellet Production Guide © PelHeat Ltd - Wood Pellet Grills