PelletMasters' MKL225 Pellet Mill — and the 92 Hours Nobody Bills
Verdict $3,695.00 against $425.00 a ton for the cheapest pellet B.T. Enterprises has in stock: break-even at 9 tons, or 92.31 hours at the hopper. The 15 PTO horsepower is yours to supply.
Prices are US list prices at the time of publication. Shipping, duties and local taxes vary by country — check with the manufacturer before ordering.
B.T. Enterprises will sell you a ton of wood pellets today for $425.00. PelletMasters will sell you the machine that makes a ton for $3,695.00.
Nine tons and the machine is square. The catch is in the same vendor’s production table: nine tons is 92.31 hours standing at a hopper, and no invoice anywhere will ever show them.
The Machine
The MKL225 is a 9-inch two-roller flat die pellet mill with no motor on it. It mounts on a Category 1 three-point hitch, turns at the standard 540 RPM, and arrives with the PTO shaft and connecting pins in the crate. The tractor is the motor — the same trade the TX25 generator makes with a different box on the back.
PelletMasters asks a 15 hp minimum at that shaft. Its products page puts PTO-driven mills at “~13 pounds per horsepower per hour” with the standard 6 mm die, which at the minimum is 195 pounds an hour, or 10.26 hours a short ton. That horsepower is the mill’s own rating, not the tractor’s: PelletMasters’ worked example is a 20 hp mill at 400 pounds an hour.
The machine has two prices. The manufacturer’s own page lists it at $3,495.00, “In Stock”, and sends you to a phone number: the pellet mill sections carry no cart, while the hammer mills and grinders on the same page carry six PayPal buttons. The same company’s eBay store sells it at $3,695.00 as a fixed-price listing, condition New, titled “USA In-stock.” The button costs $200.00, or 5.72% — 0.47 of a ton of the pellets it exists to replace.
The Numbers
| Item | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| MKL225 9” 2-roller PTO wood pellet mill, eBay | $3,695.00 | PelletMasters eBay store |
| Same mill, manufacturer’s site, phone order | $3,495.00 | PelletMasters |
| Minimum PTO power · die · speed | 15 hp · 6 mm · 540 RPM | PelletMasters |
| Published rate, PTO mills at 6 mm | ~13 lb per hp per hour | PelletMasters |
| Recommended feedstock moisture | about 15% | PelletMasters FAQ |
| LG Softwood, cash price, in stock | $425.00 per ton | B.T. Enterprises |
| Northern Warmth Douglas Fir, in stock | $585.00 per ton | B.T. Enterprises |
| Hammer Mill 158, 3 hp, in stock | $1,895.00 | PelletMasters |
| 9” roller assembly and die | $714.95 | PelletMasters eBay store |
B.T. Enterprises, of Bristol, Connecticut, publishes twenty listings, each with a cash price, a regular price and its own stock line. Seventeen are in stock the day this was written; Cubex, Force Hardwood and Maine Woods read OUT OF STOCK. Across the in-stock tons the list runs $160.00 from end to end. Buy the top of it instead of the bottom and the mill is square at 7 tons rather than nine.
What Breaks
195 pounds an hour is a ceiling, and the vendor says so in a different room of its own site. The 13-pound figure is for fuel pellets generally. The FAQ adds that “soft materials like grains will have a higher production rate than materials like hardwood sawdust.” No wood-specific rate for this model is published: that is DATA NOT AVAILABLE FROM SOURCE. Every hour figure on this page is therefore a floor, and the ton count behind it a floor too.
The feedstock has to show up at 6 mm and about 15% moisture. PelletMasters’ FAQ: to make 6 mm pellets “we need ¼” (6 mm) material. This is often accomplished by processing the materials through a hammer mill.” Its 3 hp hammer mill is $1,895.00, and the combination deal takes 10% off it. That working stack is $5,400.50 — 13 tons, 133.33 hours. Dry sawdust straight off a mill skips this. A pile of chips does not.
Nothing above prices the tractor. Fifteen PTO horsepower for 10.26 hours a ton burns diesel, and what a given tractor burns at a given PTO load is DATA NOT AVAILABLE FROM SOURCE here. The driveline wears too. Both numbers push every break-even on this page the wrong way.
Freight is not in either price. Filter the same eBay store to free shipping and 18 of its 23 listings survive — but not these two. What the pallet costs is DATA NOT AVAILABLE FROM SOURCE.
The die and the rollers are consumables. The replacement 9-inch roller assembly and die is $714.95 on the seller’s own store, which is 1.68 tons of pellets. How many tons one set lasts is not published.
The manufacturer’s warning applies to the manufacturer. Its FAQ calls competitors’ output claims “simply fantasy” and advises buyers to “compare pellet mills by die size and motor power rather than unverified claims of production rate.” Read strictly, that is advice to distrust the 195 too.
Who Should Buy This
The operation that already makes dry sawdust and already buys pellets by the ton. Sawdust that has to be bought, hauled or dried is a second invoice this arithmetic does not carry, and a mill fed bought feedstock has no case at all. This is the same shape as the waste oil heater that only works on oil the shop generated itself: the machine is cheap, the input decides.
The tractor owner whose winter is quiet. The mill alone asks 92.31 hours at the hopper to reach break-even, 133.33 if the hammer mill comes too. If those hours have a price where you are, put it in before the machine.
The buyer who can say which spec the next $500.00 is for. The three-roller MKL229 is $4,195.00 on the same store and asks 25 PTO horsepower. Per pound-hour of published capacity it is the cheaper machine — $12.91 against $18.95, a factor of 1.47 — but only for a tractor that can turn it, and only for someone making enough tons to care.
Not for anyone measuring this against a pellet stove’s annual habit. Nine tons is several winters of ordinary burning, and the maple evaporator that paid for itself in a season at 95 taps is what a fast payback looks like by comparison. Not for a shop with chips instead of sawdust and no hammer mill budget. Not for anyone who would have to buy the wood.
The Stack
No affiliate links in this issue. When a link earns us a commission, we always say so. Verdicts are never for sale.
Dry sawdust and a tractor with 15 PTO horsepower, against a $425.00 ton: the MKL225 at $3,695.00, two rollers on a 9-inch die, button included. More tons than that, and a tractor with 25: the MKL229 at $4,195.00, $500.00 for the third roller and 130 more pounds an hour.
Material coarser than 6 mm — chips, shavings, anything a saw did not already powder: the Hammer Mill 158 at $1,895.00, 10% off when it ships with a mill, free freight on this one.
Two companies published everything needed here and neither published the number that decides it. PelletMasters gives pounds per horsepower; B.T. Enterprises gives dollars per ton. The hours between them are yours, and they are the part that is not for sale.
One machine. All the numbers.
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