BTU of wheat?

[ginny63]

Local store advertizing their corn burning stove will burn wheat. Ask clerk what the BTU of wheat was, she had no idea. Does anyone have information about BTU of wheat if burned in a corn/pellet stove?

[Windy in Kansas]

http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ageng/structu/ae1015.htm

Just a reminder that some cereal grain burning stoves take a larger blower than for corn so you should check the wattage requirement to determine the jump in electrical costs.

Also just to give you a heads up the price of wheat has skyrocketed this summer and is the highest it has been since about the mid 1970s. Nearing $8 per bushel here in Kansas.

Adding---The cereal grain stove specs I looked at indicated that the unit had to be started/heated up or whatever with wood pellets before starting the flow of the cereal grain. If one let the unit burn out on chilly nights rather than keep it going this would add considerable daily expense.

[ericjeeper]

A pound is a pound. Only so many btus in a pound of anything be it coal,corn,wood, cherry pits or diesel fuel.

[fantasymaker]

Originally Posted by ericjeeper

A pound is a pound. Only so many btus in a pound of anything be it coal,corn,wood, cherry pits or diesel fuel.

What he said ammended to add the word "dry"

Corn= $3.50
wheat=$7.98
at the local elevater today

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Originally Posted by ericjeeper

A pound is a pound. Only so many btus in a pound of anything be it coal,corn,wood, cherry pits or diesel fuel.

Uhh.. how about a pound of rock? How many BTU's there?

[texican]

*being facetious*

Maybe they should also advertise the food burning stove will also burn money!
Corn is going through the roof, but wheat is already there. Would put a new spin on the old dilemma, to either eat or stay warm...

[copperkid3]

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericjeeper
A pound is a pound. Only so many btus in a pound of anything be it coal,corn,wood, cherry pits or diesel fuel.

Originally Posted by Matthew Lindsay

Uhh.. how about a pound of rock? How many BTU's there?

Uhhhh Matthew........I think if you look a bit closer to the quote that you yourself quoted from ericjeeper, you'll see that it was already answered.
Coal is a rock; just formerly organic material that fossilized.

[rambler]

But the rock - er coal - has a lot more BTU than the cherry pits......

Strange comments.

Grains are sold per bu, 56 lbs of dry corn, or 60 lbs of dry wheat. One would start from there.

Wheat is going to cost a bundle this winter, I think. Corn is competitive with other fuels. If you are in a dry wheat area, might want to see if millow, barley, or the like is available - could be cheaper than wheat. Nice to see grains finally worth something, historically compared to other consumables, corn is a bargin at twice the price!

--->Paul

[fantasymaker]

Originally Posted by rambler

But the rock - er coal - has a lot more BTU than the cherry pits......
--->Paul

LOL Ill put my ton of cherry pits up against your pound of coal any day!

Pound for pound they are nearly the same.

[edcopp]

What has the world come to? I get junk mail every day telling me about all the people who are starving, and we are talking about burning food to stay cozy.

Perhaps there is another solution:

What if we ship all the starving people to the USA, feed them and hire them to cut wood so we can all stay warm and cozy. There is plenty of room here. I read in a post last week that all the people in the USA could fit into Texas, so 47 other states left to provide firewood.

I know it's a job that most Americans don't wnat, so perhaps the illegal Mexicans will go home.

I contend that one could live in a motel about as cheaply as heating with wheat.

[sheepish]

North Dakota State University has a comparison chart that includes both wheat grain and straw:

http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ageng/structu/ae1015.htm

[Windy in Kansas]

Originally Posted by edcopp

What has the world come to? I get junk mail every day telling me about all the people who are starving, and we are talking about burning food to stay cozy.

What if we ship all the starving people to the USA, feed them and hire them to cut wood so we can all stay warm and cozy. There is plenty of room here. I read in a post last week that all the people in the USA could fit into Texas, so 47 other states left to provide firewood.

I contend that one could live in a motel about as cheaply as heating with wheat.

That junk mail you get every day telling you about starving people is probably sent by folk that have off shore accounts to tuck your donation into. Granted there are some legitimate charities but quite a number of them have generous salaries for those administering the program with little getting to those in need. A seem to remember a song from years back where a preacher was putting the bite on the congregation for money WHILE he was wearing a Rolex watch.

We should also be mindful of the offers in the past from farmers willing to donate grain only to be turned down by the government in the countries with starving folk.

Starving folk--let those governments where they reside purchase our grain so that it has more value so that growers are less inclined to get the most return on their investment. Why is it any different for a farmer to grow wheat to specifically heat his home with than for him to take the land out of crops in order to grow trees for firewood? Seems to me that you grow what works best for your area in order to take care of oneself. There are certainly not all that many trees in western Kansas, but they can readily grow wheat in most years.

If people in the US switched to burning wood the countryside would soon look like the deserts of the middle east. It would also soon like like the Denver bowl in winter with a brown cloud hanging over the city.

You call staying in a motel living? Wheat has typically been about $2 to $3 per bushel for decades, take a guess how many acres of wheat it would take to live in a motel for a year? Also just to cover growing expenses?

Personally I have to question whether starving people make much of an effort to help themselves or if the government over them really makes an decent attempt to help them.

If the governments of the world wish to make an energy difference why aren't there new housing standards for nearly air tight super insulated houses with devices to exchange the stale humid air for fresh?

Enough of my soap box stand since I can be opinionated on some things.

[ericjeeper]

It will replenish itself with proper management a whole lot faster than waiting on coal to form or Oil to make itself.
So I agree with the mentality of burning fast growing btus be they corn, pellets,cherry pits, wheat whatever anything besides oils and gas.

[Farmerwilly2]

How about a pound of urainium? A slow burn, not a milisecond light show burn, but a controlled, Springfield, Homer Simpson kind of plant burn.

[deb]

Burn wheat? I don't get it. Wheat is food. Why would anyone want to burn food? Not only is it food, but it is a crop that gets fertilized and for most farmers that fertilizer is a petrochemical they had to buy. The cost of wheat includes the cost of the petrochemical fertilizer so really isn't a "Clean" or "cheap" source of heat.

You might as well stick with burning wood since trees don't generally get fertilized so the cost of wood isn't as dependant on the petrochemicals.

Please note that petrochemicals are used to harvest and transport both wheat and wood, but most folks can find locally grown wood whereas not all areas can grow wheat.

deb
in wi

[Windy in Kansas]

Originally Posted by deb

You might as well stick with burning wood since trees don't generally get fertilized so the cost of wood isn't as dependant on the petrochemicals.

but most folks can find locally grown wood whereas not all areas can grow wheat.

deb in wi

You did qualify your statement with "most folks can find locally grown wood whereas not all areas can grow wheat."

Turning that around for western Kansas with its low annual rainfall, Most folks can grow wheat whereas they cannot grow firewood of any quality or quantity.

So to be sustainable at all one needs to look at what works for them. They could burn wheat which they can readily grow themselves or they can import coal, propane, heating oil, or firewood from other regions at considerable cost.
Wheat is simply the best choice because it grows easily. Why must it be looked at as ONLY a feed/food crop?

What needs to be done by Oak Ridge National Laboratories or others is to develop a reasonably priced stove that will easily burn crop residue. Perhaps a businessman/developer needs to install regional pellet mills that will turn crop residue into pellets that can be burned in the stoves already available.

Of course this would need to be done at a reasonable price in order to compete with burning the fruit of the crop rather than the residue of the crop plus the cost of the pelleting process, the time required to take the residue in to be converted into pellets, plus the transportation costs to do so.

[Farmer Joe]

Barring all the discussion on the discussion of using grain for heating, AURI did a study of the BTU content of several differant fuels. The report can be found at: http://www.auri.org/research/fuels/pdfs/fuels.pdf
There is also more information on biofuels at: http://www.threeriversrcd.org/pcwl%2.../pcwl_home.htm

[Windy in Kansas]

Farmer Joe that seems to be a good site with research showing not only the BTUs per pound, but what I will call the content of the smoke.

Those results are a tad different than others I've seen but are probably closer to correct.

Thanks for the url.