thank you so much. this is the best of all! I will be using this on my hobby farm in Quebec. then adding it under the bedding in my chicken coop, then onto the sandy-soiled horse pasture! thanks again!
I recently tried out your simplified design. Works very well. Before I couldn't get my hand around how to build one of those barrel inside barrel things, but that worked nicely. Things I learned from my first batch: * I needed more wood than I thought, I had quite a pile in the cellar already, but when I was finished, the barrel was only around half full. * This also resulted in the big stuff not being fully carbonized through (no big deal, will saw it a bit and throw again in the next batch next year) * It took quite a while until it ran really well, that is the fumes igniting at the mouth of the barrel making a real clean burn. Next time I won't start with one fire in the center, but make a much larger starting base to get to that good spot faster. * Throwing in too much at once makes too much smoke. * Draining with the hose didn't work for me (only until the barrel got half empty), as I don't have any slope. I fished any coals I could out with a sieve and threw the rest on a dry spot in the garden to dig it in. * I put the barrel upright in the cellar only to see it started corroding already. I cleaned it up and now store it mouth down. In total I got 20 kg of coal.. Worth approx. 20 bucks. The barrel took me 50 bucks. So 1-2 more batches and I'm in the green. Not counting the 150 bucks I spend on the saber saw to make the mouth (which IMO wasn't so a great idea, it worked but I had to deal with kickback on the ripples of the barrel). PS: this 20 kg coal amount to 60kg of CO2 saved for generations to come :) This equals approx one car drive of 350km when using gas.
I don't know where you live so I have no idea of the sort of wood you used but generally I start with small wood then if I have larger pieces I put them on when it gets up to temp then smaller wood to finish its interesting the that 20kg of coal represents 60 kg of co2 I have been wondering what the difference is between letting the wood rot in the paddock which is adding to the co2 in the atmosphere apparently and making biochar and using it to make the place greener. I don't know if you get what I mean I guess I mean the whole thing like 20kg of char =60kg of co2 but you are getting rid of wood if left to rot has a negative impact and greening the planet. Maybe it a triple wamy. John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 CO2 has 2 oxygen atoms on one carbon atom, so CO2 it's 2.8 times heavier for every carbon atom. That work is what the tree already did by growing. Letting wood rot would release most of the carbon again as CO2. Being carbonized it's hardly available to be digested by microbes etc., thats why it's removed from the atmosphere for centuries to come (up to millennia from what i read). I did like you said, start with small wood, big in the middle and finish with small wood again. I believe if I just would have had more wood, the big chunks in the middle would have had more time to carbnoize through. It's not an issue, I'll just throw it in again in the next batch. Having only a smaller community garden we're about to have one barrel full per year. PS: thank you for you method!
@@georgelionon9050 I have had the odd piece that isn't carbon all the way through to but very rarely all I do is whack it with a hammer and get the char off then like you said put the wood in next time. John
In my experience, it's best if you keep the feed stock under 3" if it's larger try to cut or split it so the cross section is 3" or less, then I'll use a shovel to chop up and break the coals if possible.
John. Since the char has to be inoculated before you put it in the soil. Add the inoculant in the drum after the cooling water has cooled off. This would save water, and eliminate one step.
Un saludo desde Euskadi, y muchas gracias por compartir y enseñarnos , el que para mi, es el mejor sistema para hacer biochar, el más cómodo y el más eficaz. Muchas gracias y espero que no le afecten los espantosos incendios que están sufriendo. Un saludo.
I am sure its working where I put char in the paddock the cattle hammer it. The area is always short and green. Now I have the crusher its made it a lot better and I can crush the char no effort. Its all systems go. I never liked bought fertilizer now I hate it with a purple passion. I would feel violated with no lubricant at the price they are asking. John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 I think that is their intention for the future, to put so many farmers out of business and the rest have no idea how to make their own or believe they cannot scale it to suit their needs, I suspect there is going to be a lot of changes soon by the Governments to stop people being self seficient
@@AttitudeAdjuster Given the state of the world I am amazed that people don't rebel. I have utter contempt for any person who's occupation is that of a politician. No matter how you look at it politicians have got the world in the state its in good bad or indifferent. Getting on to farmers and what the powers that be have in store for us, the bottom line is control the food and you control the people. Why if you wanted to have ultimate power over the populace would you let a few people called farmers have control over food production. Or let people take control of it themselves. In America they want everyone with a garden to register there garden on some website and its an initiative of the united Nations. Get rid of the current system and take over all food production and you have a big stick to keep the populace under control. People need to wake up. John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 You look at No seeds in foods, on what planet would you do this or would you ever have allowed it to happen? Look at the powers they have given themselves to enter property and terminal anything they want to and refuse to show identification or supply and papers? why on earth would this have been put in place? as you say there are a lot of people in this system that have a serious agenda that goes against everyone's interests
since you mentioned its(biochar) a fertiliser, in my opinion Bio Char from Coffee or Dried peleted manure high in NPK is an organic Fertiliser , but if it got burned too long the N P will be lowered leaving it mostly Carbon and Potassium , Since its a Carbon sponge it surely will decrease the need for chemical fertiliser / compose and bio Mass on your land for generations. I hope im not wrong :)
A couple methods I've used, 1 I used a rusted rim off an international harvester 1066 laying on the ground as a fire ring, trickling in the woods until it was full of coals, then I would fill the front bucket of my my kubota with water and shovel the coals into the bath, quenching them and making more room to continue processing wood. The other I used is a triangular cone kiln which I really like as it funnels the coals and concentrates the heat making a very hot bed of coals, which can either be shoveled and quenched in a water bath, or flooded in place. I'm currently in search of a larger hopper that's at least 8' on a side so I can load it with the grapple on my tractor and make bigger batches, and if I can figure out a crusher on the bottom of the funnel, crush & quench for a continuous feed operation.
Its good to see practical people thinking and trying ways to make new methods to produce biochar. I think the internet helps people to pool their ideas and experiences for me its a bit of a slow process as I have so many things on the go you sound like you want to produce a large quantity like me. I wonder that governments havn't thought about turning all the green waste from the cities and towns into Char and use human sewage to charge the char. Although not a pleasant idea to some people I am sure the end product would work great imagine how big a pile of char you would have. I would be very interested to hear how you progress with your ideas. Maybe you could email me at farminglifeaustralia029@gmail.com. John
Isn't it terrific. I have been madly making biochar to reduce the risk of fires around our property. Yesterday I patiently chopped a dead tree down to manageable bits biochared it down.( Trees seem so big but when they have been biocharred there isn't alot to them anymore the poor things) I soaked it with fish emulsion and humic acid and now it is around a young tree giving it a chance to grow strong and healthy. I didn't know about the molasses. What does molasses do?
@@kettlehum the molasses supplies a sugar that will cause a bloom of soil microbes that will live in the bio char. The microbes are what break down the soil nutrients into something plant roots can use. Also they are a way of adding micro nutrients that have been depleted from soil long ago. Minerals in a plant are much more available in a plant to a human than taking supplement. Try spraying about 2 teaspoons of molasses on vegetable plants and see if they don't look healthier and have less pest.
I use a thick galvanised metal dustbin with a lid . And make my charcoal from large wood chips and dried ivy leaves using the same method layers of ivy leaves first with kindling then big wood chips and then any logs then wood chip and ivy leaves to finish . Fill with water put the lid on and have a warm seat to sit on.
Looking like you have a lot of work to do! Wow. Interesting stuff. See if it was me I would put a pig over the to of those fires. Two birds with one fire. Hahaha. Thanks for the demonstration. Jim
You would need the pig a long way away I nearly got cooked that was one down side to doing the four at once I need them further apart the combined heat was awful. John
how much is the cutoff - a quarter of a drum or less? Would you change it after using it e.g. make it smaller to more choke flames and contain the heat? How would you estimate efficiency of this setup in terms of not loosing much wood to ash?
I just went and measured the drum and its about 6 foot around the drum or 1.8m and the opening measures 14inches or 35cm You dont want to choke the flames the idea is to keep adding wood so that the fire underneath doesn't get oxygen and turns to coals then when its full add water to the coals an you have a drum of biochar. If you get the feed rate right it produces more char than double retort methods and no ash. What ever you do do not think by adding a lid and containing the heat it will work better my friend did this and got a tub of ash. John
John, some folks over here in the UK use the same method to make charcoal but roll the drum (fast, having placed a few bracing sticks across the top of the burn) over on to soil / sand, to seal off oxygen and put it out. If I wet it down, how long in your temperatures over there does it take to dry it out fully? I need charcoal though, not biochar, thanks
Nice system. I will give it a try butt instead of water I will cover the coal with packed soil and leave it for a day or two to cool off I think. Have only rain water where I have the garden.
@@erector5953 I think basically its the same I do it the way I do because its above ground easy to unload I am over digging holes and getting the char out of the ground . Don't get me wrong I don't think there is anything wrong with the cone pit method if you are younger and have a strong back. Unfortunately I am past digging holes I dont have to. John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 I agree that the principels it's the same and that's what matters in fact . Methods changes depending the context and it's always good to give a try on news ones in my opinion .
Really liked the idea of wetting it down to prevent too much ash. What do you do with that amount of biochar before introducing it onto the farm? We've began to add it to our goat manure & compost piles.
@@TLFarm I have noticed that where I tip the water out the grass grows quicker and a lot greener I suspect it raises the PH we are a bit low here. As far as what we do with the char I am in the process of doing a video about that. John
Biochar has a PH of around 10 so I don't think adding it to soil with a high PH would help. Our soil has a PH of about 5.5 so it helps to raise the PH which is good. John
Morning John , 6:10 am here. Have you thought any more on how to crush the Biochar faster? Now I was thinking. Maybe an old push mower. with the mulching attachment in place. Lower the deck to its lowest position. The char would have to be wet. to keep the dust down.
Its 5:27am here now but I have been in bed asleep I guess its in the afternoon there now. I have a plan to make a crusher like a bigger thing like I used before that wont clog. It will be faster for the corn and crush the biochar as well. The mower idea sounds good maybe you could put a couple of boards on the ground the width of the deck and put the biochar in between to contain the biochar while you crushed it. John
I read somewhere somebody uses a concrete mixer for this very effectively, it will break down the coal by the rotation without spreading a lot of dust. Unfortunally I don't have one and don't planning on buying one for this. I used the small scale stone, cloth and hammer method.
Again, very nice, thank-you! I wonder if the wood ash solution might be useful: it will have a lot of potassium in it, but it will be very cautic (it is used to make soap).
From what I know wood ash has a much lower PH than Char so I guess it depends on what you are trying to do also the cell structure of Char makes homes for microbes and water retention etc. We have a soil PH of around 5.5 and Char is around 10 so I guess in our case adding Char will help to raise the PH I am about to start some growing trials on the whole shebang so soon I will know a lot more first hand. John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 you can buy pH meters quite inexpensively and Universal Indicator paper, all on eBay, even more cheaply. My expectation is that the cooling water, one used will have its pH raised from about 6.5 (ie very mildly acidic, due to dissolved CO2) to a pH of 11 due to the dissolved potash/wood ash. I'll see if I can do a small-scale experiment (not easy where I live). Perhaps you could beat me to it! (Oh! that I had 'my own' land and farm! Best! John
Good to get back and hear some honest, straight, no crap or hype talk.....and very informative to boot !!!!!
Thanks a lot for that. Hope you got something out of it. John
Agreed!
thank you so much. this is the best of all! I will be using this on my hobby farm in Quebec. then adding it under the bedding in my chicken coop, then onto the sandy-soiled horse pasture! thanks again!
I am glad you got something out of it. John
Thanks mate....greetings from South Africa
Thanks for watching in South Africa. John
I recently tried out your simplified design. Works very well. Before I couldn't get my hand around how to build one of those barrel inside barrel things, but that worked nicely.
Things I learned from my first batch:
* I needed more wood than I thought, I had quite a pile in the cellar already, but when I was finished, the barrel was only around half full.
* This also resulted in the big stuff not being fully carbonized through (no big deal, will saw it a bit and throw again in the next batch next year)
* It took quite a while until it ran really well, that is the fumes igniting at the mouth of the barrel making a real clean burn. Next time I won't start with one fire in the center, but make a much larger starting base to get to that good spot faster.
* Throwing in too much at once makes too much smoke.
* Draining with the hose didn't work for me (only until the barrel got half empty), as I don't have any slope. I fished any coals I could out with a sieve and threw the rest on a dry spot in the garden to dig it in.
* I put the barrel upright in the cellar only to see it started corroding already. I cleaned it up and now store it mouth down.
In total I got 20 kg of coal.. Worth approx. 20 bucks. The barrel took me 50 bucks. So 1-2 more batches and I'm in the green. Not counting the 150 bucks I spend on the saber saw to make the mouth (which IMO wasn't so a great idea, it worked but I had to deal with kickback on the ripples of the barrel).
PS: this 20 kg coal amount to 60kg of CO2 saved for generations to come :) This equals approx one car drive of 350km when using gas.
I don't know where you live so I have no idea of the sort of wood you used but generally I start with small wood then if I have larger pieces I put them on when it gets up to temp then smaller wood to finish its interesting the that 20kg of coal represents 60 kg of co2 I have been wondering what the difference is between letting the wood rot in the paddock which is adding to the co2 in the atmosphere apparently and making biochar and using it to make the place greener. I don't know if you get what I mean I guess I mean the whole thing like 20kg of char =60kg of co2 but you are getting rid of wood if left to rot has a negative impact and greening the planet. Maybe it a triple wamy. John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 CO2 has 2 oxygen atoms on one carbon atom, so CO2 it's 2.8 times heavier for every carbon atom. That work is what the tree already did by growing. Letting wood rot would release most of the carbon again as CO2. Being carbonized it's hardly available to be digested by microbes etc., thats why it's removed from the atmosphere for centuries to come (up to millennia from what i read).
I did like you said, start with small wood, big in the middle and finish with small wood again. I believe if I just would have had more wood, the big chunks in the middle would have had more time to carbnoize through. It's not an issue, I'll just throw it in again in the next batch. Having only a smaller community garden we're about to have one barrel full per year.
PS: thank you for you method!
@@georgelionon9050 I have had the odd piece that isn't carbon all the way through to but very rarely all I do is whack it with a hammer and get the char off then like you said put the wood in next time. John
In my experience, it's best if you keep the feed stock under 3" if it's larger try to cut or split it so the cross section is 3" or less, then I'll use a shovel to chop up and break the coals if possible.
John. Since the char has to be inoculated before you put it in the soil. Add the inoculant in the drum after the cooling water has cooled off. This would save water, and eliminate one step.
Good idea john
I recommend mixing water with molasses
Hello john we copyed your barrel idea with 500 gallon steel tank keeps ya fit feeding it
So satisfying to setup a production line!
It worked good the only thing was the combined heat from the fires was pretty hot. John
Good Day John. Glad I found your simple method of making Char!!!
I'm glad you did too I like the concept of sharing knowledge between people. John
Un saludo desde Euskadi, y muchas gracias por compartir y enseñarnos , el que para mi, es el mejor sistema para hacer biochar, el más cómodo y el más eficaz. Muchas gracias y espero que no le afecten los espantosos incendios que están sufriendo. Un saludo.
Thank you for commenting I only speak English sorry. John
Looks like a really good production line and it does look successful
I am sure its working where I put char in the paddock the cattle hammer it. The area is always short and green. Now I have the crusher its made it a lot better and I can crush the char no effort. Its all systems go. I never liked bought fertilizer now I hate it with a purple passion. I would feel violated with no lubricant at the price they are asking. John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 I think that is their intention for the future, to put so many farmers out of business and the rest have no idea how to make their own or believe they cannot scale it to suit their needs, I suspect there is going to be a lot of changes soon by the Governments to stop people being self seficient
@@AttitudeAdjuster Given the state of the world I am amazed that people don't rebel. I have utter contempt for any person who's occupation is that of a politician. No matter how you look at it politicians have got the world in the state its in good bad or indifferent. Getting on to farmers and what the powers that be have in store for us, the bottom line is control the food and you control the people. Why if you wanted to have ultimate power over the populace would you let a few people called farmers have control over food production. Or let people take control of it themselves. In America they want everyone with a garden to register there garden on some website and its an initiative of the united Nations. Get rid of the current system and take over all food production and you have a big stick to keep the populace under control. People need to wake up. John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 You look at No seeds in foods, on what planet would you do this or would you ever have allowed it to happen?
Look at the powers they have given themselves to enter property and terminal anything they want to and refuse to show identification or supply and papers? why on earth would this have been put in place?
as you say there are a lot of people in this system that have a serious agenda that goes against everyone's interests
@@AttitudeAdjuster Yes but we as a species allow it. I wonder at what point people will say enough. John
This is an awesome video!
We inoculate ours with pig poop, chicken poop, sheep poop, filthy duck and geese water, worm wee etc
Sounds good. Any poop works good. Urine we use first it goes as clear as gin in a few days and no smell. John
Good Day John. Don't notice how I missed this video!
G'day Charles Coker O well you found it now. John
great video john. i think i must try this .to improve my soil . thanks gary.
Unfortunately that's not the end of the process next it needs to be crushed then inoculated but I think its worth it. John
since you mentioned its(biochar) a fertiliser, in my opinion Bio Char from Coffee or Dried peleted manure high in NPK is an organic Fertiliser , but if it got burned too long the N P will be lowered leaving it mostly Carbon and Potassium , Since its a Carbon sponge it surely will decrease the need for chemical fertiliser / compose and bio Mass on your land for generations. I hope im not wrong :)
At the very least it provides a home for the micro organisms in the soil as well. John
hi from MN./USA. thanks for this. Just great, testing.
Thanks for watching and commenting. John
A couple methods I've used, 1 I used a rusted rim off an international harvester 1066 laying on the ground as a fire ring, trickling in the woods until it was full of coals, then I would fill the front bucket of my my kubota with water and shovel the coals into the bath, quenching them and making more room to continue processing wood.
The other I used is a triangular cone kiln which I really like as it funnels the coals and concentrates the heat making a very hot bed of coals, which can either be shoveled and quenched in a water bath, or flooded in place.
I'm currently in search of a larger hopper that's at least 8' on a side so I can load it with the grapple on my tractor and make bigger batches, and if I can figure out a crusher on the bottom of the funnel, crush & quench for a continuous feed operation.
Its good to see practical people thinking and trying ways to make new methods to produce biochar. I think the internet helps people to pool their ideas and experiences for me its a bit of a slow process as I have so many things on the go you sound like you want to produce a large quantity like me. I wonder that governments havn't thought about turning all the green waste from the cities and towns into Char and use human sewage to charge the char. Although not a pleasant idea to some people I am sure the end product would work great imagine how big a pile of char you would have. I would be very interested to hear how you progress with your ideas. Maybe you could email me at farminglifeaustralia029@gmail.com. John
I had worthless soil in my garden and turned it into amazing in one year.
I loaded the charcoal with fish emulsion, molasses, and humic acid.
Thats great thanks for watching. John
Isn't it terrific. I have been madly making biochar to reduce the risk of fires around our property. Yesterday I patiently chopped a dead tree down to manageable bits biochared it down.( Trees seem so big but when they have been biocharred there isn't alot to them anymore the poor things) I soaked it with fish emulsion and humic acid and now it is around a young tree giving it a chance to grow strong and healthy. I didn't know about the molasses. What does molasses do?
@@kettlehum Molasses feeds the microorganisms and gets the process working. John
@@kettlehum the molasses supplies a sugar that will cause a bloom of soil microbes that will live in the bio char. The microbes are what break down the soil nutrients into something plant roots can use. Also they are a way of adding micro nutrients that have been depleted from soil long ago. Minerals in a plant are much more available in a plant to a human than taking supplement. Try spraying about 2 teaspoons of molasses on vegetable plants and see if they don't look healthier and have less pest.
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 Thankyou for the information I better get some molasses into it.:)
I use a thick galvanised metal dustbin with a lid . And make my charcoal from large wood chips and dried ivy leaves using the same method layers of ivy leaves first with kindling then big wood chips and then any logs then wood chip and ivy leaves to finish . Fill with water put the lid on and have a warm seat to sit on.
Nothing like a warm seat in winter. John
Good job.
Thanks for watching. John
Looking like you have a lot of work to do! Wow. Interesting stuff. See if it was me I would put a pig over the to of those fires. Two birds with one fire. Hahaha. Thanks for the demonstration. Jim
You would need the pig a long way away I nearly got cooked that was one down side to doing the four at once I need them further apart the combined heat was awful. John
Greetings John, from sLOVEnia-EU
Thanks for commenting and watching. John
how much is the cutoff - a quarter of a drum or less? Would you change it after using it e.g. make it smaller to more choke flames and contain the heat? How would you estimate efficiency of this setup in terms of not loosing much wood to ash?
I just went and measured the drum and its about 6 foot around the drum or 1.8m and the opening measures 14inches or 35cm You dont want to choke the flames the idea is to keep adding wood so that the fire underneath doesn't get oxygen and turns to coals then when its full add water to the coals an you have a drum of biochar. If you get the feed rate right it produces more char than double retort methods and no ash. What ever you do do not think by adding a lid and containing the heat it will work better my friend did this and got a tub of ash. John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 where is point a and point b in the 14 inches
@@phillipbertrand8514 Point A is at one side of the opening and point b is the other side. 14 Inches is the width of the opening. John
John, some folks over here in the UK use the same method to make charcoal but roll the drum (fast, having placed a few bracing sticks across the top of the burn) over on to soil / sand, to seal off oxygen and put it out. If I wet it down, how long in your temperatures over there does it take to dry it out fully? I need charcoal though, not biochar, thanks
If its a bit sunny and you lift it off the ground a week. I have used the char in my forge and it works good. John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 Thanks john, all the best
@@philipharris818 Thanks for watching. John
Nice system. I will give it a try butt instead of water I will cover the coal with packed soil and leave it for a day or two to cool off I think. Have only rain water where I have the garden.
Thanks for taking the time to comment. John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 you should try the cone pit method
#conepitbiochar
@@erector5953 I think basically its the same I do it the way I do because its above ground easy to unload I am over digging holes and getting the char out of the ground . Don't get me wrong I don't think there is anything wrong with the cone pit method if you are younger and have a strong back. Unfortunately I am past digging holes I dont have to. John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 I agree that the principels it's the same and that's what matters in fact . Methods changes depending the context and it's always good to give a try on news ones in my opinion .
@@erector5953 I agree when you stop trying things you stop learning. Thanks a lot for your input. John
Excellent stuff buddy 😉
Thanks for commenting and G'day from Australia. John
Really liked the idea of wetting it down to prevent too much ash.
What do you do with that amount of biochar before introducing it onto the farm?
We've began to add it to our goat manure & compost piles.
@@TLFarm I have noticed that where I tip the water out the grass grows quicker and a lot greener I suspect it raises the PH we are a bit low here. As far as what we do with the char I am in the process of doing a video about that. John
Is there an application in soils with high pH?
Biochar has a PH of around 10 so I don't think adding it to soil with a high PH would help. Our soil has a PH of about 5.5 so it helps to raise the PH which is good. John
Morning John , 6:10 am here. Have you thought any more on how to crush the Biochar faster? Now I was thinking. Maybe an old push mower. with the mulching attachment in place. Lower the deck to its lowest position. The char would have to be wet. to keep the dust down.
Its 5:27am here now but I have been in bed asleep I guess its in the afternoon there now. I have a plan to make a crusher like a bigger thing like I used before that wont clog. It will be faster for the corn and crush the biochar as well. The mower idea sounds good maybe you could put a couple of boards on the ground the width of the deck and put the biochar in between to contain the biochar while you crushed it. John
I read somewhere somebody uses a concrete mixer for this very effectively, it will break down the coal by the rotation without spreading a lot of dust. Unfortunally I don't have one and don't planning on buying one for this. I used the small scale stone, cloth and hammer method.
@@georgelionon9050 I have seen people put it in a bag and tie the neck then drive over it for a while.John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 Haha, I doubt that is allowed in Europe. :)
@@georgelionon9050 Thats to bad. John
after you made it and put it down in the garden/field, what were your difference in results?
I did some trials with 0% 5% and 15% I made video's about it called Biochar Trials.
Great
Thanks John
Hi mate do you have cattle?
Yes we do. John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 jave ypi feed them char?
Again, very nice, thank-you!
I wonder if the wood ash solution might be useful: it will have a lot of potassium in it, but it will be very cautic (it is used to make soap).
From what I know wood ash has a much lower PH than Char so I guess it depends on what you are trying to do also the cell structure of Char makes homes for microbes and water retention etc. We have a soil PH of around 5.5 and Char is around 10 so I guess in our case adding Char will help to raise the PH I am about to start some growing trials on the whole shebang so soon I will know a lot more first hand. John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 you can buy pH meters quite inexpensively and Universal Indicator paper, all on eBay, even more cheaply.
My expectation is that the cooling water, one used will have its pH raised from about 6.5 (ie very mildly acidic, due to dissolved CO2) to a pH of 11 due to the dissolved potash/wood ash.
I'll see if I can do a small-scale experiment (not easy where I live). Perhaps you could beat me to it! (Oh! that I had 'my own' land and farm!
Best!
John
@@farminglifeaustralia6716 lovely, best wishes for your trials!
Glad you've found the Living Web Farms videos!
For a non-Australian, what's "Letho"... or was it "metho"...ua-cam.com/video/WflSIAFOPuw/v-deo.html
Metholated spirits. Its low grade alcohol. John