Straw logs

Slim

Member
has anyone any expirience or knowledge of making straw into compressed logs for burning as a diversification on small scale? Machinery costs where to get the machinery etc this is on small scale , I farm 120 ha of combinable and think this could be a use for my own straw, has anyone done this , I'm in camb's
 

Still Farming

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South Wales UK
Was crazy while ago that made brickettes or pellets.
There use to be the british biofuels event every year at Stoneleigh but died a death witb all companies etc. Involved etc.-was good show but looks like things moved on ?
 

renewablejohn

Member
Location
lancs
has anyone any expirience or knowledge of making straw into compressed logs for burning as a diversification on small scale? Machinery costs where to get the machinery etc this is on small scale , I farm 120 ha of combinable and think this could be a use for my own straw, has anyone done this , I'm in camb's

Problem you have is very few boilers are capable of withstanding the corrosion caused by straw exhaust fumes so your market is limited. From a practical production point of view the wear on the dies for making briquettes or pellets is much greater for straw than for wood.
 

Davey

Member
Location
Derbyshire
Well you could shorten the length on a conventional baler to make squares but I wouldn't fancy the job of bringing in and trying to stack a couple of acres of those!
 
Farm up the road from me was doing this 30 years ago.
All the kit, if my memory serves me correctly, was by a firm called New Air.
Comprised of a bale unroller, chopper/blower, storage bin with the ram system underneath.
Fair bit of kit.
Main problem with the straw logs was the amount of expansion when they burnt. If you put too many on the fire, they fell off as they burnt. Put a lot of people off them. Worked much better if you had 50% wood shavings go through the chopper with the straw.
Never really took off though. The farm is no longer there, no idea what happened to all the kit.
 
I can't understand the appeal.

It smells worse and produces more ash than wood. It's also quite acidic.

I burn 3-400 tons per annum and if it wasn't for the epic finances I would rather burn something else.

When we are importing all out timber from abroad because the wood chip boiler boys have burnt everything in the UK then maybe but until then...!
 
I can't understand the appeal.

It smells worse and produces more ash than wood. It's also quite acidic.

I burn 3-400 tons per annum and if it wasn't for the epic finances I would rather burn something else.

When we are importing all out timber from abroad because the wood chip boiler boys have burnt everything in the UK then maybe but until then...!

That's quite a tonnage to burn, what are you heating, and what do you burn it in?
 

Surgery

Member
Location
Oxford
Farmer and a contractor near us bought into compressing straw and making it into some kind of board-insolation if I remember rightly a few years back , all new machinery from Germany and a new shed to put it in , firm went wrong who supplied it and contractor went tits up , farmer had plenty to fall back on , same story when it comes to being a pioneer , better being a trend follower than a trend setter IMO.
 
That's quite a tonnage to burn, what are you heating, and what do you burn it in?

I run two batch biomass boilers on two separate farms. Between them they heat about 5 big houses, a church, 15,000 ft of commercial, 2 grain stores, farm office, workshops, some log cabins etc.

For us as farmers it's been superb with returns of about 4 yr pay back before you allow for the saving in grain drying costs.

The great thing about these boilers is that they can burn all the straws (OSR, cereal, pea, bean and linseed) as well as timber in a number of guises and cardboard.

We load two Hestons at a time, no fancy automation which has moving parts, it's a really simply system which is farmer proof.

Even with out RHI, if you need to dry grain on an annual basis it's a no brainier, cost of straw works out at just under 0.05 pence / kW, which covers the cost of the bailing and hauling it to the farm.

Whilst straw has its negatives, for own use its outstandingly cheap (currently 1/6th of the price of chip?) as a source of heat.
 
I run two batch biomass boilers on two separate farms. Between them they heat about 5 big houses, a church, 15,000 ft of commercial, 2 grain stores, farm office, workshops, some log cabins etc.

For us as farmers it's been superb with returns of about 4 yr pay back before you allow for the saving in grain drying costs.

The great thing about these boilers is that they can burn all the straws (OSR, cereal, pea, bean and linseed) as well as timber in a number of guises and cardboard.

We load two Hestons at a time, no fancy automation which has moving parts, it's a really simply system which is farmer proof.

Even with out RHI, if you need to dry grain on an annual basis it's a no brainier, cost of straw works out at just under 0.05 pence / kW, which covers the cost of the bailing and hauling it to the farm.

Whilst straw has its negatives, for own use its outstandingly cheap (currently 1/6th of the price of chip?) as a source of heat.

What sort of boilers have you got?
 

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