Dry pellets?

[patinlouisiana]

I loaded a few trays of apple wood pellets in my smoker and ran 150F all day then put up in zip lock bags just enough to fill the AMNPS. Will they stay dry or did I waste my time?
Also thought about vacuum sealing them?

 

[mike243]

A zipper bag will be fine.

 

[siege]

If they get damp, you can microwave briefly. For my pellet smoker I store them in airtight 5 gallon buckets. I keep a variety of flavors for the A-Maze-N tray for my MES in gallon bags stored in a Rubbermaid Action Packer out on the deck by the smokers.

 

[patinlouisiana]

If they get damp, you can microwave briefly.

Well being easily distracted.... I'm still trying to get the smoke smell out of the microwave. She said "Never again!"

 

[6GRILLZNTN]

Well being easily distracted.... I'm still trying to get the smoke smell out of the microwave. She said "Never again!"

I accidentally blew up some chicken livers in my microwave thawing them out for fishing. I would have killed for the smell of smoke wood. Talk about "Never again"!

 

[siege]

Eeeyeahhh ....the operative word is briefly.
Wipe the microwave down with a baking soda and cool water mixture to get the smoke smell out. Don't ask me why I have come to know about this.

 

[sigmo]

Been there, too! :)

Plastic bags aren't water vapor tight in my experience. If you want to keep pellets really dry, I recommend using Mason jars. They're pretty cheap, reusable, and do the trick. Avoid any wood dust on the sealing surfaces by wiping off the lip of the jar before putting the lid in place.

It took a few weeks for our microwave oven to stop stinking even though I scrubbed the surfaces I could reach! ;)

If I use the microwave oven now, I heat for 30 seconds max. Stir. Do it again. Stir, etc., for five or so cycles. That's doing one AMNPS worth at a time, in a microwave safe bowl.

But lately, I've been heating bigger batches in large sheet pans in a convection oven at 200 degrees for an hour or so. That dries them well. Then I jar them for storage until needed.

A while back, I weighed some pellets before and after drying. It was surprising how much mass they lost. And it's pretty dry around here!

But at our elevation (about 5300 feet), I need all the help I can get to achieve reliable burning.