Hi Doug do you have any details on the auger? Was hoping for some in the book but no such luck. Will propably make one just looking for more detailing…
Here is a little better explanation of how I make engine charcoal fuel out of twigs and brush that otherwise often goes to waste.
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Good video Don. You are really getting into this charcoal business. You make it look easy with out grinding. I have all that charcoal I saved from burning part of my barn but that has nails in it and big chunks that have to be ground, besides the sifting. I have a welder / generator 1/2 converted to charcoal, but it is taking a back seat to my truck.TomC
Don, this is really good. Outstanding! I have been doing almost the same thing using the two barrel system, except I have to bring the small branches to my charcoal making area. (I like your three-point hitch idea.) I have welded rings to the outside of my wheelbarrow (The one with a solid thorn-proof tire), and stack it really high with thorny brush and push it to the barrel. Once the barrel is full of large junk wood in the 2" to 4" range, and has burnt for 90 minutes, I start throwing the brush into my chimney barrel, and after another 30 minutes, I can remove the top barrel and cover the lower barrel with a steel plate and some weights. The bottom barrel is in a 2’ deep hole in the ground, so I shovel in some dirt to cover the air holes at the bottom edge of it. I, too, screen first with 1/4" screen, and then with 1/8" hardware cloth on frames. I run the charcoal through the grinder later, and screen again. The stuff that falls through the 1/4" screen and not the 1/8" screen is saved separately. I’m getting quite a bit of it, and use it as gifts for relatives and gardening friends. Having the bottom barrel half way into the ground makes it easy to toss in thorny branches about 4 feet long. Once again, Good Job on the Cone Kiln/three point hitch charcoal maker and the video.
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TomC, I have found that most large chunks made from hardwood are not really done on the inside, so If I can’t bust them up easily with my hands, they are considered to be “brands”, and go back into the next barrel load (near the end of the burn). I pick out the nails, spikes, hinges, etc, and sell them to the steel recycling outfit, along with my rusty fence wire and pieces of burnt out charcoal making barrels. The nails are easier to handle if they are inside of flattened tin cans. (We recycle everything…no garbage service.) I’m about to get more experience with barn wood, as Martin P recently delivered a flat bed trailer load of wood that used to be an old building. There are no heavy beams…just thin stuff, maybe old pine. I have a barrel loaded and ready to go, but we haven’t had any rain in over a month, and the fire hazard is too high to have an open fire. I may have to make up a second retort, load it, cover it, and wait for rain so I can run both of them at the same time. .
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With my barn wood we stacked it in 6x6x6 ft. piles ( that is as large as the Dept Nat’l Res allows and of course I comply-- sort of) I burned the entire pile working it as it went. My last action is to rake down in the center of the pile to the ground. That assures that everything gets burned. When I get no more flames and just hot char, I put on a hoody jacket and welding gloves and shovel the hot coals into a 55 gal drum and cap it. It is fast but then the work begins. Haven’t started on that part yet. TomC
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Great video Don. Do you have to cut the brush up a lot to get it in the burner? I wonder if one of those garden shredders would make it a shovel ready process.
Yes Carl, after the trees came down I used a hand pruner to lop off anything under 3/4 inch. That all went on those brush piles for charcoal and everything over 3/4 inch got cut up for the Tracker to eat. I have a small PTO chipper for my tractor and that would work OK too but I think this works better because the air can get around the twigs better for a faster and more complete burn.
Great idea - I have a ton of brush to burn around here. I have another question about using either unseasoned wood or pine to make charcoal. Does all the water (or pitch) burn off during the charcoal making process?
“Does all the water (or pitch) burn off during the charcoal making process?”
That’s the idea, because burning pitch is almost entirely tar, which can destroy an engine. Water just needs to be cooked off before the wood can heat up enough to turn to charcoal.
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What BrianHWA said. You can use softwood or hardwood twigs. I use mostly soft wood cause that’s what I have. (hardwood is better-lasts longer in the hopper). Twigs dry faster than thick branches and cord wood but I try to charcoal them at least 30 days minimum in warm dry weather after the tree comes down and the leaves are dry and brown. You have to get used to looking at the brush piles a while. The nice thing about the open cone/tapered hopper is that the fire can be watched closely to make sure there are no yellow flames but only red coals before adding a lot of twigs or dumping charcoal.
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Hi Don
Your open fire kiln intrigues me. I looked at the Kon Tiki Klin.
Dousing the coals with water, is this a good practice if you want to use the char for a charcoal gasifier?
Regards
Werner
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Hi Werner,
I don’t know if dousing with water is good or not because I never do it that way. I can see some advantages like less dust and fast quenching for better yield. I know Ray Menke does it that way - and he makes more charcoal than the rest of us put together - but he lives in Texas where it is hot and dry. It might take forever to dry up here in Michigan.
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Werner,
For immediate use, getting the char wet would not work. In my case, we have had years of drought and very hot weather so once the charcoal is sorted, screened, dried, and run through a charcoal grinder, and then stored for years, it doesn’t seem to know it was once wet. My daughter was here last week for a visit, and was amazed at the amount of charcoal in bags in my barn. (Yesterday I was loading my 182nd 55 gallon drum with dead limbs to be made into charcoal.) I store the finished engine grade charcoal in sealed barrels, and on very dry, low humidity days I remove the barrel lids (and leave them off for a while) to see if any water vapor wants to escape. A freshly loaded barrel will have some condensation on the bottom side of the lid. Most of the white plastic feed bags in storage contain sorted/sifted but unground charcoal. Most of the bags have a note inside with the date and type of wood, such as Mesquite, Oak, or Mixed. Here is a photo taken about 3 1/2 years ago.
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Wow Ray, I quit counting back when you were at 150 some barrels. You are a mini OPEC (or CPEC)
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More discussion about how to build a continuous system of charcoal production.
I like the way Don does it loading the top of the hopper and draw product from the bottom.
But a lot of heat is wasted.
This is process heat and somehow if it could be insulated and controlled more char could be produced with less CO2 lost to the atmosphere.
Higher temperatures could speed the process too.
But how would you build such a thing I wonder?
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I played some with a pocket rocket boiler.
Also made charcoal in a wood stove continuously, shovel char out.
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Hi Jeff,
I watched the video and was hoping to see more of the stove. Maybe like a short walk around? You label it a boiler. Also a rocket stove. Does that mean it burns hot all the time with an open air intake?
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I second that… I can’t quite figure it out…
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It started out as this.
http://www.messickstove.com/products/ds-machine-boilers/specialty-boiler-151-bucket/
Then I hacked it into a pocket rocket. Maybe this weekend I could drag it out side and do a video.
I have a 2000 gallon tank I plan on using it as an out building for a cone kiln. I’ll use the bottom of the above stove. Later add heat exchanger above the cone.
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