The simplest biochar production method known
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- In the previous video I showed how to build a biochar kiln. This time I show you how simple it is to use and make your own biochar at home, for free, with discarded sticks (in this case eucalyptus). Inlcuded is the informnation on how to activate and innoculate it.
{I also got the opportunity to try out the new tripod I bought only yesterday}.
Great explanation of the fire preventing the oxygen from reaching the already burnt wood at the bottom..liked and subscribed.
THANKS! From Australia! I am a little old lady who used to be an Afrikaanse plaasmeisie long ago. And still a Boeremeisie at heart. It was so lovely to watch you doing your burning for Biochar, but even more so to look at the beautiful Cape countryside and veld - - - specially exciting was the voice of the tortelduif towards the end!! Made my heart sing in memory of the Transvaalse plaas I was blessed to grow up on! I am planning to make charcoal the way you did, in my Perth backyard, and then inoculate it with a mix of organic leaf liquid fertilizer( made the Jadam way) and some worm wee as well as a good dose of organic molasses, to turn it into magnificent fully charged Biochar.. It will be worked into the dreadful sand we have in Perth,(which also happens to be hydro phobic) together with good compost ad cow or chicken manure. All for my poor suffering veggie patch. Sjoe! how I miss that rich brown earth I grew up on!
What are you using your biochar for? Where in the Cape are you?
God Bless you, your Biochar, your farm, the Capeland, and the whole of South Africa!!!
Greetings from a scatterling of Africa in South Louisiana. I should have known I’d get the video I needed from a fellow Boer. Thanks.
Glad I could be of service Gabriel.
I have an almost identical setup. I use an 150 gallon tank, and every burn yields a good amount about 4 wheelbarrows. I also use a steel rod to break up the coals as I go. That’s a good way to verify it’s done when it breaks apart. I soak it with water and roll it out, easy peasy! To make it biochar I mix it with compost, wet it and let it stay about 3 weeks before applying it.
That is really cool - and your system sounds pretty much perfect. Keep it up!
ua-cam.com/video/W1Nw_nIx62w/v-deo.htmlsi=nIaLPCnKGsGQgL0A
I use a similar setup with a 55gal drum and a slightly larger top section removed, but my actual loading and burn process is quite different.
To further minimize the amount of oxygen, I tightly pack the drum about 3/4 (maybe slightly more even) of the way full. I place my smallest diameter size wood in the bottom 1/4, medium to largest size pieces in the middle, and then another final top layer of small to medium size diameter pieces. I try to pack it as tightly as possible while still maintaining a network of small air gaps to allow gases and VOCs to more easily burn off. I start my fire in a corner of the barrel and allow it to naturally spread across the entire top “burn” layer, which typically takes the first hour or so.
Depending on the sizes of the wood I’ve used, how tightly packed the drum is, and how dry the source material is, a typical full burn takes approximately 6-8 hours for me. During that time, I only ever top off/refill the top layer about every 2 hours just to keep the top layer burning and prevent it from traveling down to the rest of the wood. Before each refill, I will use a steel plate tamper to press down and keep the lower levels as tight as possible.
In the end, I am left with a full drum of which only about only the top 20-25% of the drum has actually been burned through direct fire ignition. All the lower stuff is entirely free of any ash and is all pure biochar, that has only been burned through pyrolysis. I find I get a much cleaner and purer end product doing it this way, rather than starting a fire in the bottom of the drum and slowly adding more and more material on top, which really just burns more like a typical campfire.
Genius! I'm going to give it a shot with your method this week
I make charcoal similar to this but my barrel is cut in half lengthwise and I don't put so much wood in at a time because I don't like smoke. Since I'm frequently feeding the fire, I have very little ash and a clean burning fire. Also, near the end, I use smaller wood to give the bigger pieces that are already in it more time to burn.
If I'm making biochar, I dry the charcoal out first before charging it with compost tea because in my way of thinking, the dry charcoal pores will absorb more than if it was full of water.
Very interesting thanks for sharing!
Hay that's awesome. Thanks for the video
Glad you liked it. Let me know if you have any other ideas.
water dousing not only prevents the coal from burning into ashes, but also opens up the pores inside - which is actually the whole point of the process: creating maximum surface. From what i understand, it can also be done by weak acid (vinegar etc). it's called "quenching".
Anyway, keep up the great work!
Absolutely correct! When the water hits the hot coals all those micro pores 'explode', increasing the surface area many, many times.
Thank you for the great video. Have a great day 👍👍👍👏👏👏
FIRST TIME MAKING BC ,,,AND HERE YOU ARE GIVING ADVICE !!!
Well, first time using this kiln. The previous method was wasteful as it didn't give nearly the same amount of char and you couldn't top it up during the process. Also took really long to cool it down afterwards.
Enjoyed the information. Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Glad to see im not the only one quenching with water. I just shovel coals into metal washtub full of water.
Love the face time view with the tripod, awesome. I am also at the stage of thinking about biochar (and charcoal) soon, so this is well timed. Burning wood does release quite a bit of VOC\burning resin etc. But if you burn complete without smoke, as with gasifier, you have a near perfect burn.
Love the kiln. :}
Well, this does release a fair amount of smoke (but only for a few minutes). After that it's just pure heat coming off and almost no smoke.
Yeah, good stuff. Thank you from downunder! Appreciate your time and effort. Cheers.
I will actually use this bio-char design- but downscaled to a 20 litre (5 gallon) drum. Why? Because I’m making/building 60 litre (15 gallon) self-watering-self-feeding productive pots- and my overall needs are relatively ‘modest’ @ 10-15% volume per pot of bio-char.
Having said that… my personal preference for innoculant is an introduction/feeding of EM.1 micro-biology. And personally; I’m leaning more towards a greater understanding/appreciation-of fungal bio-diversity. Such is the impetus of ‘saving soil’ that drives this underlying promise of the ‘re-discovery’ of the power of bio-char. Whose ultimate function is that of an ‘essential’ scaffolding that facilitate soil biodiversity… ‘life’
It is said, “The answer; lies in the soil!” It is truly undeniable… that life itself… all begins and ends… in the soil!
Guava bug biochar… has to be a market here…!🤣🤣😍
Hallo - ich habe gerade Ihr Video gesehen - wie heute viel andere, weil ich gerade mal wieder anfange mich mit Tierra preta /Schwarzerde zu beschäftigen. in der Vergangenheit habe ich schon einige Furen davon hergestellt, diese aber fast ausschliesslich bei Freunden in Gärten verwendet.
Nun - das Fass sieht ja recht einfach aus - einfach gewinnt , da ich gerade dabei war mir Gedanken zu machen, wie ich auch Blätter und Pampasgrasblätter verkohlen kann. Habe bisher die Uplitdown Methode verwendet, bei der ich maximal 1/3 des gefüllten Fasses als Kohle hatte. o.k. ich habe auch kein hochwertiges Holz verwendet, weil ich das nicht hatte. Stattdessen wächst bei uns sehr viel Bitterrohr - ein Verwandter des Zuckerrohrs.
Nun , wie auch immer - glaube ich heute , dass ich gefunden habe , wonach ich gesucht habe. Wenig Rauch - sichere Verbrennung - keine oder wenig Funken - einfache Bauweise und jederzeit nochmal einfach herzustellen. Ich brauche keine Bauanleitung - ich habe genau aufgepasst. Von daher vielen lieben Dank und alles Gute für Sie
Thank you for the video!
Nice one!
Was that urine you added to the biochar in water to activate it?
How could we use the heat for something else? For heating up a bath tube?
Oh yes, absolutely! We should be able to re-use the heat many, many times.
I was trying to find which type of burrel will be great for me
Could you show how the biochar tinkles like glass which is the difference between biochar and ordinary fire ash.
Looking again after three months, I understand the science of the oxygen remaining and burning from the top where the fresh wood is layered. And the "kiln" is ideal.
Hi again! I'm wondering if you could please post a link to the previous video you referred to the one where you demonstrated how to make a biochar kiln? I'd love to see that but I can't find it in your videos
ua-cam.com/video/GoBa5GThZ7s/v-deo.html
Hope this helps!
Hello, have you ever measured the temperature that's reached inside the barrel? I've heard that up to a point, the higher the temperature, the longer the carbon will be stored securely in the char for, if that is your primary goal..
As far as I'm aware, the point of biochar is to create living quarters for microorganisms
What is the size of cutoff from the drum
how long did the whole burn last? and does the final product require grinding before adding to soil?
Probably about 2 hours. After that I broke up the pieces that were too big with a spade (in the drum) and then inoculated it with bacteria (compost, worm tea and molasses), before using it in the garden. Don't add it without the inoculation as it will take a season or 2 before you see positive results as it will first suck nutrients into itself.
Hi there that's activated charcoal, biochar is a bit more work.
Not really. Charcoal takes longer (over 12 hours), it's more acidic (slightly) and less porous. Charcoal is also meant for fuel, while biochar is meant for soil. Biochar is also done at a higher temperature, which is why you can clean your hands with water afterwards, which you can't do with charcoal. In many instances you can use charcoal in your garden as they are chemically almost identical (except briquettes - don't use them - they are filled with binding agents). Sometimes charcoal also has a mechanism in place to help feed the fire with its own exhaust gases. This can cause higher levels of VOC's in some charcoals - that you probably don't want in your soil. Biochar is also inoculated - which charcoal isn't.
You could do this in a hole dug in the ground with less risk of personnel injury.
Possibly, but then you have the danger of starting a veld fire, which is a very real possibility in this climate. There is also the problem of how you would inoculate it. You could try to ignore the inoculation, but it would dramatically slow down growth in the first season, so I would stick to this method rather. My first try at biochar was in a hole. Most of that batch is still in that hole. Ultimately, if you feel a hole in the ground is more your style, by all means do that. Do what you can with what you have.
Charcoal briquettes have a little clay as a binder
How dry the wood be?
Dry wood works better. Less smoke and a quicker burn.
This is not the simplest biochar production method. I don’t have a metal drum and make it simpler with a hole in the ground. Less materials equals simpler.
Technically that could be simpler. I used a hole in the ground at first but found it more difficult to control the oxygen flow and the dousing at the end. I also couldn't use the same 'container' to inoculate it at the end as most of my liquid (and organisms) would seep away. But, good on you to do what works for you. Keep it up.
@@capelandpermaculture5808 The Dakota fire pit method works well and even better with a section of stove pipe that you can control the air flow to the bottom of the burn with. I don’t want to inoculate my char in the same place since I intend to do another burn shortly thereafter. The drainage is quite a good thing in that case. As you say, whatever works for you.
Flame Cap Method is easy but requires proper management for quality.
A hole in the ground is cool and wet in many places and times - it works and can work well but it can be a challenge too.
@@jimj9040Essentially you've described a stove - primary and secondary air flow. With Dakota you can begin with primary air, then shut off the primary once hot. I like it.
@@snookmeister55 Sure, yeah, it’s just a dirt stove. No rocket surgery required, just attention to the burn.
Char is wood. Charcoal is wood and coal.
Charcoal is a dark or black porous carbon that is produced by strongly heating wood or other animal and plant materials in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. It is an impure form of graphitic carbon that is obtained as a residue when carbonaceous material is partially burned or heated with limited access of air. Charcoal is widely used in outdoor cooking. It is generally obtained from the burning of plant parts like wood, peat, bones, and cellulose.
but in a barrel with a closed barrel inside you reach a stage where you burn less wood to make char ,the gass coming from the closed barrel burns the rest of the way....ua-cam.com/video/svNg5w7WY0k/v-deo.htmlsi=1JrkHQSUTZaekcpL
I used the barrel in a barrel previously, but it was a hassle. You couldn't top it up during the burn, so you were limited in the amount of biochar you produced and it took a long time to cool off afterwards. Also, if the lid of the inside barrel didn't seal properly, which happens easily, you end up with ash instead of biochar.
Simple is better
Если потратить немного денег,то можно сделать более эффективную печь.ua-cam.com/video/W1Nw_nIx62w/v-deo.htmlsi=nIaLPCnKGsGQgL0A
this is making charcoal and not true biochar ,you released almost all the trapped carbon.....
You did, of course, notice the black stuff left over after the burn? That was carbon. You noticed how my hands were easy to clean after I touched it? Thats because the volatiles were gone/burnt off. Charcoal still contains those volatiles. Charcoal can be used as a soil amendment, but it isn't as good as biochar and doesn't last as long.
I still haven't found anybody that is able to tell me the actual difference between Biochar and Charcoal. I'm pretty sure it's just the same thing
@forestdweller775 That's what i thought too, it's just called Biochar once it's charged with nutrients. Some people make it seem like you MAKE them differently which is confusing. Thx
@forestdweller775 You should be able to use it like a briquette. Usually, for a briquette, it is ground up and then formed into handy packages held together with something like clay as a binder.
@@runninggag In essence they are identical, except for the addition of water afterwards which explodes the structure inside with steam creating a massive surface area for bacteria to inhabit. Charcoal doesn't get treated with biological material afterwards and is seldon used in the garden.