[Gasification] Biochar

[Thomas Reed]

> Dear Ray and all
> 
I'm focusing on making Biochar for the gardens here this spring. 

> An alternate approach to needing a grinder for charcoal is to limit the diameter of the feedstock to 1/2 or 3/4".  Of course, you van always find sections of branches that are reasonably straight and that size. 

But, particularly in Spring, the buried root systems of stumps are sending out fairly long, straight sprouts, 1/2"-1" in diameter, easy to find, cut and collect, and ideal for making a "Rick" to convert to charcoal.  

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These shoots could be used to build "ricks" similar to the ricks used by Jack Daniels to make industrial quantities of active (not activated) charcoal ( but on a much smaller scale - so far).
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> 
 
I made a small "Rick" this afternoon and fired it.  

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I
I
> I got a nice yield of charcoal (after I shake off the ash and remove the brands).

The next "rick" will be much bigger  with inch sticks from sprouts.  

Tom Reed

> On Mar 27, 2013, at 4:57 PM, Ray Menke <ray.menke at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I built a copy of this charcoal processor, but welded the 3" cylinder
>> to a bicycle sprocket and use the crank to grind up the charcoal.
>> (Dust mask required!)
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37-h41iT68M
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 3:15 PM, Big Daddy <bigdaddy at offgridpro.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Tom,
>> 
>>> I purchased a large meat grinder from a gentleman off Craigslist. He was
>>> using it to make chum for his fishing trips by grinding up mackerel. If my
>>> biochar chunks are 1? or smaller, it works perfectly, with very little
>>> effort. The end result is:
>> 
>>> ?         30% powder
>>> 
>>> ?         30% sand grain sizes
>>> 
>>> ?         40% ~1 centimeter chunks
>> 
>>> I stole ? er, borrowed ? this idea from a YouTube video. My grinder is a
>>> little bigger than this, and I haven?t hooked up a motor yet? Someday.
>> 
>>> Here is the video:
>>> 
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q14T1IP7So
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -BigDaddy
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Ray  Menke
>> 
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