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

Wed Sep 14 13:12:39 CDT 2016

Thanks Crispin,

A final story you may like is how I started doing this to start off with, a
neighbour was always quite keen to buy charcoal from our forest but would
say since that since he smoked, the charcoal smoke made him cough(!)  So I
googled charcoal smoke traps, read up a bit on what was happening in East
Asia and history of Pine Tar in Sweden and USA and started tinkering with
various sizes/lengths of pipe after paying close attention to the biomass
stoveslist lectures and voila...liquid smoke.

The basic principle I think is the outside of the thin metal pipe is cooler
than the inside and this makes some of the smoke condense. I am sure there
are many ways to water cool it and so forth but that can come later when we
find a few more people replicating and hopefully improving on this simple
design ( I have found two people so far in Kenya and highly encourage
them!). I am still busy trying to convince people not to cut down whole
trees for charcoal, and just to use the branches! Anyway, there is quite a
large visible difference when making charcoal with and without the pipe
trap - and since we recover about a liter of this wood smoke from appx
20/30kgs smoke it must be reducing something that was going into the air.
My neighbour is much more happy now at least. I asked the stove testing
center here if they could test the charcoal making emissions difference
with and without smoke trap and also against the traditional earth mound
kiln but that turned out not to be feasible given the costs. Any
suggestions on how to do some simple home and farm tests would be greatly
appreciated.

There are seem to be many variables on the final quality of the wood
vinegar - water content, age of dried wood, bark or no bark, temp and
duration of burn, speed of smoke condensation, post collection treatment
and refining and of course the question of feedstock choice. I suspect that
within even a single species of tree for instance, the actual chemical
composition of the wood vinegar would vary on age, location of growth (soil
condition, light exposure) certain endemic sub-species traits of the plant
like high tannins contents etc etc...these would all, I think, change the
final chemical composition of the wood vinegar.
For a practical perspective I reckon that if one keeps away from known
poisonous trees like acokanthera schimperi (the poison arrow tree) this
wood vinegar is alot safer to use on your fence posts than some of the
dodgy synthetic termite chemicals on the market in Kenya right now.

This could well work in Rwanda, as it is the cat is more or less out of the
bag here, the Dutch owned flower farms in Kenya do not buy things they do
not need and the very smart guy who is selling the wood vinegar is as busy
as bee with it and he's still up to much much more. Not to mention the huge
wood vinegar industry in Japan, China, Vietnam etc.

As for the ethanol aspect, absolutly, we had always thought of
incorporating a distillery system for the waste heat during charcoal making
but public opinion (and laws) of making moonshine in the backyard were and
still are quite against this idea sadly.
In any event, I'm thinking a water heating pipe for a chicken coop will be
a lower hanging fruit as you could then roast the chicken with charcoal
(liquid smoke marinade optional!) at a later date.

Speaking of not wanting to eat anything with liquid smoke, the next ''umami
of barbeque'' flavor for fancy cocktails, is, you guessed it, drinking
liquid smoke! And paying top dollar for it i'm sure!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-raichlen/up-your-cocktail-game--wi_b_4578535.html
So no Smokey Marys for you for breakfast I take it! :)

Sorry if this is quite long and off topic on technical aspects of biomass
cooking stoves but the sustainable woodfuel production aspect of charcoal
burning stoves is a key component of what we learned from our families
ongoing KCJ experience.

Best.

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 Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 5:19 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

> 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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