[Stoves] Commercial application of smoke? (Re: Crispin, Ron)

Wed Sep 14 09:19:40 CDT 2016

Teddy you never cease to amaze me with you wood vinegar stories. Thanks for this wide ranging tour and the earlier storied.

What an imaginative group of ideas.

Could you explain a little about how you collect the material? Does the water content of the wood make a difference to the quality? Quality?

It seems the byproducts are going to be more valuable than the product. Now that Rwanda has achieved charcoal sustainability, according to my WB contact. A review of sources seems to support this. The future looks bright as well. All the wood comes from private farms and the farmers make money selling the charcoal. They should therefore be collecting byproducts, condensing what will, draining what is liquid. It would enhance rural income and lower expenses while supplying fuel to the urban areas.

To complete the efficiency circle they could apply the heat to something like ethanol making as a lighting or cooking fuel.

Best regards
Crispin

Thanks for bringing this up, too add my two cents, I have been doing some
tinkering with wood vinegar as a by-product from charcoal making in the
Kenyan market and it is being very well received so far -
http://kenyacharcoal.blogspot.co.ke/2016/05/how-to-make-your-own-wood-vinegar-with.html

We mostly have been advocating using it as a wood preservative and
alternative agro-chemical for small holder farmers who are making their own
charcoal from branches, corn cobs etc. It seems to work a dream for
stopping termites, wood borers and also killing mealybugs (in fact one kiln
customer is now selling it to 3 flower farms for this, at an astounding 14$
a liter in comparison he only gets about $0.40c for a kilo of charcoal
(wood vinegar yield is about 10:1) which was what he was initially after
for briquetting to start off with!). And there is also the Stockholm tar
by-product that can be used on for sealing leaks on roofs, cattle and horse
hooves, the neck of the 'low hen' and to stop ox-peckers on rangeland cows
and caulking boats etc.

Internationaly, google brings up some intersting stats, here is a link to
the purported 3 million$ a year wood vinegar industry
https://www.psmarketresearch.com/press-release/global-wood-vinegar-market
mainly
in East Asia.

Here is another good short history of it as a bio-pesticide
http://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOASJ/TOASJ-4-111.pdf

All in all I am amazed at how many uses there are for this and what little
research has been done on it in an African context. Considering how much
smoke is released during typically traditional charcoal burning and how
many synthetic chemicals like gladiator we buy here for wood preservative I
am quite excited to see how things develop. Wood vinegar was even on the
news in Uganda the other day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iemTPlACxLs

I have hesitated on marketing it as liquid smoke food flavoring even though
we have had many requests and very good feedback from the few chefs who
took some of the first samples, two West African friends said they have
used it for adding an 'authentic' taste to jollof rice cooked on gas and
had previously been importing it to Kenya, one Kenyan chef used it for
marinades and BBQ sauce and another for the best smoked eye watering
habanero hot sauce you've ever tasted.
They said it has a very strong flavor (made from acacia xanthophloea) and
they only needed to use 1 or 2 drops per 5 liters which seems quite
diluted. Any way to each their own tastes I suppose which seems more and
more recently in Nairobi, the influence of global culinary trends such as
smokey tasting food is really taking hold given our BBQ loving culture. I
have also heard that BUrger King and the like use it for that flame grilled
taste, but am not sure about that.

My next step is to try make wood vinegar soap and see if it works to
control ticks and fleas on livestock and pets...if anything it'll give old
Fido a nice BBQ smell!

Teddy

*Cookswell Jikos*
www.cookswell.co.ke
www.facebook.com/CookswellJikos
www.kenyacharcoal.blogspot.com
Mobile: +254 700 380 009
Mobile: +254 700 905 913
P.O. Box 1433, Nairobi 00606, Kenya

Save trees - think twice before printing.

On Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 8:00 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

> Dear Nikhil
>
>
>
> The low smoke-level fish produced in a modern manner involve drying the
> fish first in a low or very low smoke environment, then adding smoky
> flavour afterwards. This latter action takes place at a low temperature.
>
>
>
> Investigations on Ghana earlier this year showed clearly that holding the
> processing temperature below 105 C prevented the oils in the fish from
> rising much about 85 and resulted in PAH(4) levels there were either
> undetectable or 1 part per billion. This was not a ‘modern’ approach. It
> was done using a wood fire and an air-gas mixing chamber that preceded the
> drying chamber. With a clean fire and adequate air mixed in, the
> temperature in the chamber was not able to get above 120 C.
>
>
>
> In one case the fish were so clean they looked fresh, but were in fact
> dried. At that stage we had to consider how to add smoke in a separate
> operation or in the same chamber but at the end of the cycle.
>
>
>
> This demonstrates that smoke flavour can be added using liquid smoke, and
> that the same result can be obtained using very clean combustion plus added
> smoke, or that it can be achieved using a new form of dryer that permits
> full control over the processing temperature and the ‘smokiness’ of the
> fire at the end.
>
>
>
> Not every one of the PAH(4) content was very dependent on the smoke,
> actually, which surprised me. It was far more likely that the
> Benzo(a)pyrene was dependent on temperature, and 2 of the other 3 dependent
> on actual smokiness. Not sure about the last one. Maybe a bit of both.
>
>
>
> I am pretty sure I will never add ‘liquid smoke’ to anything I eat. I
> totally do not trust that it is safe. Smoke can contain horrible organic
> compounds so the cleaner the better. Burn the lot.
>
>
>
> Thanks for highlighting
>
> Crispin
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I remember some exchanges between Crispin and some others about tar
> formation in chimneys.  I also remember Ron and Paul discussing biochar.
>
> The story below mentions stove pipes; I suppose that is for large metal
> stoves, not exhaust as such. But I wonder if there are commercial
> applications of smoke.
>
> Liquid Smoke: The History Behind a Divisive Culinary Shortcut
> <http://www.eater.com/2016/6/15/11945944/liquid-smoke-what-is-it>,
> Matthew Sedacca, Eater.com, 15 June 2016.
>
> I think stove designs that capture the smoke within tubes should earn some
> health credits and avoided black carbon GHG credits anyway. If liquid smoke
> qualifies under biochar - i.e., it can be used for plant growth - then
> there will be biochar credits for GHG avoidance, health benefits of soil
> productivity increase. With a million dollars, any model can be tweaked.
>
> Hello, EPA? Is liquid smoke carbon sequestration?
>
> Can collected smoke - dry or liquid - be purified for industrial uses of
> carbon? I tinkered with coke and metal products industry decades ago.
>
> It's not the emissions but where they go how, that is the question.
>
> To EPA or not EPA.
>
> Nikhil
>
>
>
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