[Stoves] Fuel, food, smoke and WBT (Re: Teddy, Crispin, Frank)

[Traveller]

Moderator: I changed the subject line.
-----------------------------

I remember a history of Cod, a history of salt. There are histories of
sugar and tea I have yet to read.

But now I think there's room for a history of smoke. From smoking meats and
fish to smoking away bugs and other critters. Roasting and grilling
vegetables on open fires. It is almost as if food and smoke go together.

And of intellectual smoke. How the advent of mass communication some 150
years ago created markets for intellectual smoke - imperialism, racism,
religious and nationalist fundamentalism - all of which had popular appeals
because at least some ends were seen as desirable, the means being evil.

John F. Kerry's State, Gina McCarthy's EPA, and Barack Obama's White House
are engaged in a new imperialism of stoves with such religious zeal.

Another White Man's Burden, as Bill Easterly would say. (Rudyard Kipling
would really know how a Gujjar from a Marwar kingdom or a Central Province
district would cook and cut trees. Not these imperialists.)
-------------------

Oh, well. Back to real smoke.

1. Teddy: Delighted to hear about wood vinegar. We need to keep in mind the
general point that biomass is of many types, has many sources and
opportunity costs, and many uses and competitive substitutes. Those who
flat out declare wood or dung cannot be combusted clean enough under any
circumstances are -- well, use your own epithets; I am disgusted with
myself for demeaning good people.

HOWEVER, we should also generally be aware that precisely for these
reasons, wood or dung may have more lucrative applications than burn
directly. When that situation arises - I am inclined to think only then -
there will be a market for "efficient biomass stoves".

We must also keep in mind that opportunity costs for other inputs - to
biomass production or cooking - may also limit biomass use in cooking. Land
and water have other uses. And children and adult cooks have been telling
us for centuries that they too have better things to do than be stuck in
the kitchen for hours, a whole day. (Dr. Johnson was nonchalantly talking
about in yesterday's Webinar, even suggesting that those who want to stay
in the kitchen the whole day should stay the whole day. I can't think of a
more sexist or more ignorant argument for stoves that keep the cook and the
children in the kitchen the whole day. Even though my children and I also
did spend long hours in our rather fancy kitchens.)

2. Crispin: So liquid smoke is not your cup of tea? What if someone said
it's carbon sequestration and will save the climate? After all, "Save mama
earth, kill her children," is the favorite strategy of Gore-ian globalists.

But you raised another issue that was at the back of my mind when I wrote
that half-serious (I am never 100% serious) concept note for Raw Organic
Foods.

What are the EMISSIONS FROM FOOD that cooks are exposed to? Why is WHO
fanatic about stove fuel emissions but cares not a hoot about food
emissions or for that matter food ingestion? IAQ guidelines won't save
hungry and undernourished children and adults, after all.

I wonder - IS WATER BOILING TEST PREFERRED BECAUSE IT IGNORES FOOD
EMISSIONS? Now, that's a nice conspiracy theory.

As I said, we are all boxed in.

Rwanda's charcoal sustainability is not something to gloat over. It may
simply mean the land and water are not being used for better quality wood
for high-value applications - furniture, construction and building, other
wood products.

And if charcoal is selling in Kigali for more than 10    USc/kg,

3. Frank: Interesting research on wood vinegar and soil. Let me try to
entertain with a couple of anecdotes.

Ten years ago, a farmer friend asked me about soil acidity. That prompted
me to look into the science of "acid rain", where I discovered that
acidic soils
at lower depths - tree roots - are harmful but that closer to surface - for
grains and vegetable crops - they are good, in terms of growth.

I used to be involved in the US "acid rain" debates and I took this
information to make another cynical argument - environmentalists care more
for trees and forests than for growing food. Save the trees, kill people!
:-)

A worn out, tiring argument - trees v. people. They often live together and
are interdependent.

How we grow crops may change what happens to trees. I have posted on that
before.

A few nights ago I was sitting with a friend who hasn't lived in
Washington, DC for some six years. We both remarked on how the food
landscape - from stores to restaurants and home delivery services - has
radically changed in the upper-income locales. As the rich get older, they
want to eat healthier; no surprise.

I decided there and then that I will collect stories about nutrition of the
poor and their food supply chains including marketing, and dietary
education and preferences.

I see a new inequality in diet and health emerging - the rich spend more on
food and health, the poor can't spend enough on good food and suffer ill
health whose costs are transferred to the society.

This is yet another gripe of mine against the air pollution mania of GACC.
Clean cooking won't save lives; better nutrition will. GACC's Leadership
Council or Ambassadors of Cooking don't know either and surely don't give a
hoot.

-----------------
None of this matters to WHO, EPA and their slaves or sycophants.

To WHO or not towho.

To EPA or not toepa.

Those are the questions.

Nikhil



>
> >
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 19:19:40 +0500
> From: Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com>
> To: Stoves <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] Commercial application of smoke? (Re: Crispin,
>         Ron)
> Message-ID: <COL402-EAS370FFF0774D66C46456322B1F10 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> 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
> >
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 08:53:51 -0700
> From: Frank Shields <franke at cruzio.com>
> To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
>         <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] Commercial application of smoke? (Re: Crispin,
>         Ron)
> Message-ID: <E915D00D-A116-4926-AE59-2C9B7205558D at cruzio.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Teddy, Stovers,
>
> I too am planning researching wood vinegar for uses. You gave a great web
> site  with a lot of information.
>
> My first experiments are to determine the toxicity it has on general soil
> microbes (EC50 LC50) based on CO2 production. Then study its toxicity on
> seed germination and then plant vigor when used as a soil drench.
>
> If you have suggestions on projects that I might have the equipment and
> ability to test out please let me know.
>
>
> Regards
>
> Frank
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