Curran Pellets are made from wood harvested from our sister company, Seaway Timber Harvesting. Our logging crews set the trees via a stroke delimber to eliminate branches and flail chippers to remove the bark, leaving clean, green stalks to be chipped for wood pellet production. The clean, green chips are then ground to 5/8″ minus put through a dryer and floor again into 3/8″ minus sawdust. The sawdust is then extruded into pellets with pure compression and no additives. Wood pellets then are passed through two shaker screens to remove sawdust and lose penalties.
Curran pellets Renewable Energy received qualification to the Pellet Fuels Institute Standards Program as one of its first participants. This app is the only one of its type in America. Producing quality fuel has always been our priority, and by taking this step, we’re ensuring constant fuel for our customers.
To fulfill the criteria of this PFI Standards Program, we work with an independent licensed auditing agency and testing lab that performs arbitrary monthly audits at our manufacturing facility to make sure we are following the premium quality program. Wood pellets are analyzed according to the program specifications throughout the PFI, and it is accredited laboratory at Timber Products Inspection.
About Curran pellets
Curran Renewable Energy is proud to be Rainforest Alliance Certified and recognized for meeting the strict criteria of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Curran Renewable Energy and Seaway Timber Harvesting are equally FSC certified, but our wood pellet plant is the first Biomass facility to become FSC certified in North America. The Rainforest Alliance and FSC are independent, non-governmental, non-profit, international organizations established to promote the responsible management of the planet’s forests.
Hard /soft pellets
The Massena NY based Curran is an interesting pellet compy in that they produce 4 different varieties of pellets for home heating. They have a hard wood, a soft wood, a 70/30 blend of hard and soft wood, and a FSC (Forrest Stewardship Council) unspecified soft/hard wood blend. This is a review of the 70/30 blend
Curran Blend pellets are 70% hardwood and 30% softwood. They are PFI “premium grade”, and claim an ash content of 1% 0r less. Fines of less than 0.05%, and the sodium content is less than 300PPM. These pellets are being burned in a basic Englander model 25-PDVC stove. The pellets have a pleasant scent when opened, and are fairly light colored. The pellets are varied in length with most being around 1/4 of an inch, and there is very little in the way of fines in any of the bags. These pellets burn very clean, leaving only a fine ash and no clinkers at all.
These Curran pellets come on 1.5 ton pallets, and the bags seem to be fairly thick plastic so there was no problems with ruptured bags. I did keep a few bags left over from last winter, stored outside under a lean to, and probably close to 50% did take on noticeable moisture, so bags are not water tight. Upon closer inspection I have found tiny little compression holes in many of the bags which possibly due to being stacked on higher 1.5 ton pallets and travel stresses. I now store any extra bags inside my home until I’m ready to use them.
Manufacturing
When locating the pellet which works best on your stove, we provide three unique varieties, Premium Hardwood/ Softwood Blend, Premium Hardwood and Premium 100% Softwood. All our wood pellets are rated premium by the PFI Institute’s highest standard for Residential/ Commercial Densified Fuel.
Made from a quality blend of soft and hard woods, Curran Blended Wood Pellets are made from wood harvested from their sister company, Seaway Timber Harvesting. Logging crews set the trees via a delimber to eliminate branches and flail chipper to remove bark, leaving clean green stalks to be chipped for wood pellet production. . The Curran pellets are then ground down, put through a drier, and ground . The sawdust is then extruded into pellets with pure compression and no additives. Wood pellets then are passed through two shaker screens to remove sawdust and loose penalties.
Conclusion
This will be my second season using Curran Blend. So far, this years pellets seem to burn even cleaner than last years with very little residual ash. I’ve been very happy and would have no reservations about purchasing this brand again.
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