Making Charcoal - A Tale of Two Retorts
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- Опубліковано 15 лют 2019
- In which we repurpose a 55 gallon drum and an old barbeque to test the indirect and direct methods of charcoal making. The direct method is to light the wood on fire directly (hence the name). The indirect method is to seal the wood in a low-oxygen environment and then light an external fire that bakes the wood into charcoal. We preferred the direct method, sealed off from oxygen.
In which we also light TWO whacking great bonfires and, again, successfully avoid burning down everything nearby.
You want a retort that doesn't leak - the only gas escape should be through your gas pipe down into your fire (you don't need or want an internal fire at all). You want it to build some pressure - that keeps the escaping gas burning steadily and keeps any fire/oxygen from getting into your retort. Think of the smaller nail hole in a paint can retorts and scale up.
Dig a big 'ol pit and sink that retort into the ground. The soil will store huge amounts of heat really efficently and the enclosed space will let you get furnace-like temperatures. All you need to figure out is airflow to the base
Classic Primitive Technology: charcoal mound
2:32 That started to pick up speed faster than I expected.
look at how dry that grass is.
He picked up that hose just as the wind started blowing. That was 30 seconds from becoming a really big and fast moving fire (if it had a field to go through, pretty sure it doesn't where they are). Later in the video the wind is really going too, it was definitely a bad day to light a big fire.
When you think you've made enough charcoal, go and make three times as much as you have. Then double that amount. Then you might have enough.
Sounds like a good start to making enough charcoal...
That is pretty much my findings ;D
As somebody with a parent from south Yorkshire and one from the Midlands of the UK, I am sick of them arguing over which one owns the bragging rights for robin hood. Your 1k vs 100k Sherwood forest point will help me shut them up, so thank you. Also a fascinating piece of information, but it's more about the parents tbh
Why didn't you show the results of each?
Cos it was only ashes in the other one. Guaranteed.
Exploring the efficiency of different charcoal making methods/devices seems like a nice idea.
Though, if you really want to make a video comparing the efficiency of the two methods, it would have been nice to talk quantitatively about how much charcoal was produced vs how much wood the process used, which is the definition of the efficiency of a process.
Also, I think one of the big problems with you open fire method is that most of the radiated heat is wasted, because it leaves from the side. So I think you should explore the idea of either having reflectors around it to try to send back this radiated heat towards the barrel, or alternatively containing this fire and injecting oxygen instead of having it completely opened, so that the heat stays mostly inside what will basically be a furnace.
With a group of friends we explored the reflectors idea for roasting a pig. So different goal, but just putting aluminium foils around the fire pit made a huge difference in that case. So maybe it's worth trying something similar.
Why are you burning the inside at all? The batches of charcoal I’ve made in a paint can came out as perfect pieces and the inside wasn’t even on fire. I’ve always just built up the fire around the can
I much prefer a retort, both for this and for pitch tar making.
Thing is, as you experienced, it is wildly inefficient and makes crumbly coals when you do it like that.
You have to make walls surrounding the fire so the retort is sort of baked in an oven. That gives low fuel consumption and excellent slowfired solid chunks of coals if fired gently
We did a fire once with 20 rail road ties stacked three then three at 90° to lower ones with chopped logs in between them it was about 8ft tall and seriously hot kept the whole party warm in September
Arnt they full of tar or at least soaked in it? That would make it burn a frick ton hotter 😂 rail road ties are bad ass
I agree with the idea of putting the drum in a pit to help contain the fire and heat.
Wouldn't the fire inside the barrel die out with the lack of oxygen? Hence you would only need the external fire.
Building a fire inside does mean you jump start the process, assuming you're using thick enough material for your main charcoal product, but also consumes a chunk of bio-matter that could have become charcoal.
If you have a need for producing charcoal on a regular basis, then building rocket stove based gasifier is probably about the best bet.
I've seen a neat design that fed the wood gas into the rocket stove re-burn chamber in the middle of the charcoal box.
dont light your inner wood on fire. Only burn from underneath. Cook the wood, dont burn it. This way bunk wood burns and quality chunk becomes charcoal. Takes a little longer, like you said more wood, but way better charcoal quality. Cooks off ALL impurity and doesnt burn the wood at all. Retort is the best. (Oh, also you need cinder block stacked around the burn wood to contain heat. Largest issue I saw. Old video I know, but everyone always tries again lol)
Ki bagunça precisa de mas isolamento e condensadores pr o aproveitamento dos óleos pirolenhosos.
the internal fire method is the choice of traditional charcoal makers around the world. i don't really understand the benefit of the external fire retort method, consistency of the charcoal produced?
Consistent quality. You can also do it without burning the interior wood at all which means much more charcoal per load. Unfortunately these guys seem to get 90% of the idea and then fail at correctly implementing it. That last 10% of research and planning would save them a lot of time.
i've only see the wood in a 55 gallon drum with an exhaust pipe that curves back underneath with holes facing the barrel. you start a fire underneath. once wood gas starts flowing enough, it will ignite from the fire below at which point you let the outside fire burnout and it will continue to burn the wood gas and heat the barrel
That certainly is the theory. This one has that exact setup, but the seal isn't super good. The flame from the pipe was sporadic at best. JB
You almost burned down the outback
"charcoal's dope man"
Not cool making us watch and not showing the end product!
Coming soon. JB
Save the ashes and make some potash?
should turn the barrel unit into a gasifer unit. and make some wood gas.
Awesome. That's definitely on the project list. Maybe a Colab with Nighthawkinlight?
... and use the wood gas to keep the external fire going?
That grass fire is scary. There's so much dead wood in the yard, it could spread to the houses and burn the while neighborhood.
Interesting stuff. But I'll bet the neighbors hate you guys...
@oOMonkeyMagicOo indeed
FUCK WOULD YOU CLEAR AWAY THE DEAD GRASS. nice vid tho man good work
cut's to fire
the first thing I heae is "The native americans..."
Hey guys, it is hard to watch you did not rehearse in your head and disregard safety. Imagine, there is that one day when the wind pick up and your hose is not long enough. Those dry trees would turn to coal unplanned. Promote safety please.
a little messy
Indeed. Further development needed.