[Stoves] How not to make charcoal?

Crispin Pemberton-Pigott crispinpigott at gmail.com
Tue Sep 13 23:41:13 CDT 2011


Dear Friends

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=aa_DvYNEUnU>
&v=aa_DvYNEUnU has a video which is part 4 or a series on charcoal making.
It did not progress as I had expected when I first starting looking at it.

 

It is obvious (to me anyway) that the amount of smoke could easily be
reduced. It looks like the result of a lot of experience and no small amount
of experimenting. Certainly a huge step forward from this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0HW4qk8dv4
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0HW4qk8dv4&feature=player_detailpage>
&feature=player_detailpage 

 

The sorting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2a2R47Rg-M
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2a2R47Rg-M&feature=player_detailpage>
&feature=player_detailpage shows there are a great deal of fines produced
which could be briquetted. 

 

The advance that Chris Adam is using is to greatly limit the air entry and
to use the burnable gas to heat a retort

 

It seems to me that the wasted gas could easily be used to dry the next
batch of wood which would raise the system efficiency.  With this in mind I
am suggesting that the production of charcoal could be viewed as a
continuous process, not an episode of heating and cooling a batch. 

 

The Hookway charcoal retort is a cleaner burning batch process.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBYaP5K0AkE
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBYaP5K0AkE&feature=player_detailpage>
&feature=player_detailpage He is using old boards and flooring. It is
obvious you could cook on it. The difference between this device and the
Adams retort is that the Hookway has an internal flame which should by more
efficient. The fact that it is very small might be attractive to some. It
looks almost completely smokeless. The numbers he gives do not include the
initial dry and final mass thus the efficiency is not clearly stated.

 

This one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezYhODSwPM4
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezYhODSwPM4&feature=player_detailpage>
&feature=player_detailpage is made from thin concrete! It looks like it was
made inside a metal drum as a form.  Unfortunately the whole production
process is not shown.

 

Regards

Crispin

 

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