I’ve been experimenting with an idea and wanted some honest feedback from people who know more about biomass, grilling, or off-grid living.
The idea is straightforward: take regular grass clippings from your yard, dry them, compress them, and turn them into burnable logs or grill pellets.
Here’s what I’ve figured out so far:
Burn characteristics:
Dried, compressed grass burns in a neutral way, similar to plain charcoal. If you just want clean heat with no added flavor, it seems to work fine on its own.
Grilling flavor:
The grass itself doesn’t add flavor. But you can mix in real wood powders (apple, hickory, pecan, cherry, etc.) during compression if you want smoke flavor. That would let you make either neutral pellets or flavored ones.
Fertilizer safety:
From everything I’ve researched, once grass is fully dried and burned, fertilizer residues combust cleanly. The grass is just the heat source.
Energy comparison:
To match around 10 kg of charcoal, you’d need about 17–18 kg of dried grass pellets or logs. If you’re starting with fresh grass, that comes out to roughly 60–90 kg depending on moisture.
Why even consider this:
It would turn yard waste into free fuel, reduce the need to buy charcoal or pellets, and create an eco-friendly, zero-waste option. You could use it for grilling, heating, or off-grid setups, and add wood flavor if you want it.
I attached a rough blueprint of the concept for anyone who wants to look.
I’d really like honest feedback on this. Does it seem useful or not worth the trouble? What problems do you see with it? Anything I might be overlooking?
