With the colder temperatures making their appearance, I though I'd take a couple minutes to share one of my other passions. Well, former passions. Not much need for it where I live now. However, back when I used to call Michigan home, I burned corn to heat my house. Here's how I did it:
Pick up from the local co-op into six 55 gallon water/air tight pickle barrels. Those six barrels netted just over a ton. About 2300lb.
Once home, I unloaded the barrels into the garage. Needless to say, backing a loaded trailer up a hill with a slight curve into a garage using a 2wd S-10 was a challenge.
From there I hand dipped bucket loads into a home built pre-screener.
That screener fed a vacuum chambered 4' x 4' x 4' storage bin in my basement. That white PVC deal on top is a second screener. It had a 1/4" mesh screen that allowed the corn to pass over/across and the dust and chaff fell through and was carried by vacuum up the smaller tube. Once past the screen the clean corn fell by gravity into the bin.
Here's what I used to pull a vacuum in the storage bin. It didn't take much. The corn moved mostly by gravity. The vacuum's biggest role was for cleaning. The green and cream colored can was actually a gutted shop vac. It worked like a cyclone. I used that to catch a bulk of the corn dust to keep it out of the bag in stainless shop vac.
Once all the corn was out of the barrels and in the basement bins, I used this vacuum chamber (35 gallon barrel) to feed a 5 gallon bucket. That was then dumped directly into the stove.
All that to feed this little pig. I used to call it Mr. Fusion. I fed it pellets, corn, cherry pits, stale cereal, dog food, saw dust. If it would burn, and fit through an auger, it went in the hopper!
I engineered and built every part of the system. I had it all dialed in just in time to move away. I even had the stove on a thermostat. To anyone considering a pellet or corn stove to get away from propane, I highly recommend it. It's a lot of work, but very rewarding.
