Making my simple fire gasifier

[BrianAltEnergy (Brian Madera)]

To document my charcoal making…

I misjudged the amount I had but fit it in the water heater tank with the rusted out garbage can chimney.

Just after lighting.

5 minutes in and burning good.

Half an hour and most of the wood is now broken up into the burn chamber. Very little smoke compared to previous batches.

One hour in and the level is about down to the water heater tank with an occasional puff of smoke but mostly just heat waves.

I can see glowing coals at the bottom air holes now.

About 10 minutes later after poking at it I got a large amount of smoke which continued off and on for another 5 or 10 minutes when the coals would drop but then went back to mostly just heat waves with an occasional burst of smoke.

At the hour and a half point the level dropped to a little over 3/4 the height of the water heater tank.

Poking at it again I could feel some solid wood.

I put some larger pieces like this in the bottom and it feels like those have a ways to go yet. Probably too big but should make a lot of charcoal if they fully convert. Back to only heat waves now.

Two hours now and still has some solid pieces so…

I didn’t have any gasoline in the tank so this had to be started straight from the gasifier fuel. Has so much flywheel weight that it started easy but took some adjusting to get the air/fuel mixture right and had to baby it feeding the bigger pieces in slowly and let it build back up the speed before giving it another bite but it worked. Maybe a water drip would help but it isn’t as usable as the generator or log splitter.

Back to the charcoal. 3 hours in and the big pieces were not fully converted but I didn’t want to lose too much of the smaller stuff waiting for it to finish.

I decided, right or wrong, to shut it down. The level dropped to maybe a quarter of the water heater tank. I expect this to take at least a full day to cool back off before I can open it and see what I got.

I figured I probably burnt 1/8 of a bucket of engine grade charcoal running the chipper and I hope today’s batch of charcoal is at least a full bucket or more after it is ground and screened to engine size but I’ll update everyone when it cools down and can be dumped out.

[SteveUnruh]

Hello BrianM.
Good works and evolving capabilities you are showing up.

One of my reluctances to going over to “The DarkSide” (not my saying this; I think it was Gary Gilmore himself in jest way back) is just not possible to year around make the wood charcoal. 2-3 months of fully demanded No Smokes complete all fires shut downs. Then 3-4 months of all outside woods gone too wet, heavy soaked past 40% moisture by weight from months of heavy raining and slush snows.
So then, a system dependency on dry stored pre-made wood charcoal. Used up and Out of engine fuel charcoal. you are truly Out, with no economical good way to just go out and buy more. Back to gasoline. After you restore the engine/carb’s capability.

We’ve finally had two a week apart rainy days here after nearly 90 days of hot dry summer drought. I’m am 1st Fall mowing now today the front yard coming out of brown dormancy.
Still, though for good reasons the state-wide and local total burn-bans have not been lifted yet. Still active wildfires going in my state, and adjacent states.
So IF I, or anyone; made the smokes and steam releases you show; someone on the ground or arial surveilling would see; and within one hour to four hours at least one to four Agencies would be showing up on your property.

May I ask what state or region you live in to be able to make charcoal this early now?
Regards
Steve Unruh

[BrianAltEnergy (Brian Madera)]

Steve, I’m in Pennsylvania only maybe 10 miles from Gary Gilmore and it hasn’t been real dry lately plus I don’t have any neighbors real close. Gary showed me how he makes his charcoal but his wood is drier than mine. His process made almost no smoke at all but he still couldn’t (shouldn’t) do it if there was a burn ban. I’m trying to get a stockpile of charcoal made when I can and usually make a little more than I’m using but I probably can’t stockpile enough unless I get better at making it and get more at once. I have it spread around and most hasn’t been ground and screened but probably only have half a barrel of it right now.

I take it from your comment that driving on wood is still allowed during the burn ban?

The DarkSide describes the charcoal pretty good. It is very dirty especially grinding it the way I have been doing it with a cordless drill (solar charged by the way). I would rather run my engines from raw wood and did just order the book but the charcoal gasifier was SIMPLE to build and it works.

I have been reading Bill’s mini WK in the premium section as I wait for the book to be delivered as well as watching Wayne’s videos.

I know charcoal isn’t the best choice for everyone especially if you aren’t in an area where you can make your own charcoal or if you are wanting to run larger engines but, for a small engine needed an hour or so a day, it’s hard to find a SIMPLER gasifier design. Good as a proof of concept, a cheap and easy to build practice gasifier, and an inspiration to build a more complicated gasifier but it’s usable so not just a toy.

[SteveUnruh]

Oh, no. Specific questions you’ve directly asked me. Ha! Ha! Brought it on myself.

In Washington State those who have woodgas converted vehicles, and home power woodgas can and have continued to use them thru burn-bans. Just as long as they never, ever show firing up visible, smellable smokes. I’ve had four nightly wood stove fire so far this month. I’d learned to not ever make any attention attracting smokes. Wife has In the middle of the gravel driveway used her charcoal BBQ. No smoke.
A couple of in-Florida guys have said that their States Forestry officials said that they could not have ANY thru and below the bed ash clean-out or dumps. No possibility of liting off RR-like, forestry fires.
So they and others not wishing to tie up commit a whole vehicle to woodgasing; thru the bed, within the sidewall; all along the bed and cabs underneath like a true W.K. does - then changed over to slide-in bed mounted systems.
Much of the W.K.'s performance and easy mainteneces gets lost that way.

On BillS.'s WK-mini you’s have to ask him directly but I think he did not finish and develop it.
He now also uses charcoal systems on his woods 4x4 toter; and his snow sled I believe.

Now in the very Evergreen Washington State what fellow has to never, ever do is dump any liquids condensates, tars, or ash along any road sides!! Here the Green-Eyes are always upon you.
And in the cities/metro urban areas best not proudly signage your vehicle as powered on/by wood. You will get pelted with words, gestures and thrown garbage by passing vehicles.
Activists Eco-Greens. This is their areas. Thier Hoods. But . . . much as they may think, not the whole state . . . we still have true Rural corners, and pocket strips. Whole counties not Uber-green.
S.U.

[r_wesseling (Rindert Wesseling (Louisville,CO))]

Hi Brian,
My experience is sooo similar to yours. But I live in a semiarid climate, Colorado’s front range.
We don’t have burn bans here. So I guess we always have a burn ban. You may have heard of the Marshal fire.
Anyway. I like to cut most of my wood for charcoal into small pieces. Then if I have any root balls or other stuff that is too hard to cut I surround them with the small pieces. I make sure that I have a good thick layer of small pieces on the bottom. I usually end up with 3-5lbs of uncooked wood from a 100lb batch.
Rindert
A link to more of my experience.

[sbowman (Steve Bowman)]

Brian,
This might interest you, too, if you haven’t already seen it.

Toyota Corolla Charcoal Vehicle Gasifier Project

When I was a teenager in the 60’s, the movie “The Longest Hundred Miles” sparked a life-long interest in powering gasoline engines with wood. Part of the movie story line involved the use of WWII era charcoal gasification technology to power an old bus enabling a priest, a group of orphans and two American soldiers to escape advancing Japanese soldiers. I was intrigued by the novel source of fuel, but figured that it was probably a Hollywood creation. My dad, however, who was watching the movie …

[BrianAltEnergy (Brian Madera)]

Thanks Rindert. I hadn’t really considered:

to NOT grind charcoal … cut my wood chunks to produce appropriate sized charcoal

or even Bruce Southerland’s comment from your link:

get free hardwood chips … screen them between 1 inch and 3/8 inch screens … Turn them into charcoal in a water tank TLUD with a variable speed air supply

I’ll have to look up more information on TLUD burners. I built something like that using a couple disposable propane tanks as a camp stove years ago. Yesterday I was testing it out with some of my charcoal and didn’t get flames. Then I tried it with some tiny pieces of wood and it worked but seemed to go out (no more flames) and leave charcoal. It was too small as a camp stove requiring too much feeding and way too small for making usable quantities of engine grade charcoal but a larger version might make a better stove as well as give some charcoal. I think I originally had a fan under it to force air but that part wasn’t with the pieces I found.

I was under the impression that it drew the gases down and out the top holes but The MIDGE Gasifier Camp Stove says:

When the stove gets to temperature, the secondary air at the top of the burner will mix with the gas and can be seen as flames emanating from the secondary air holes in the burner section

and:

there will be CO2 emitted when the stove is burning the remaining charcoal (after the flame has gone out).

So I guess it is a TL-UP DRAFT

[BrianAltEnergy (Brian Madera)]

Thanks Steve B. I’ve been really tempted to try hooking my little simple fire up to my truck or something larger than the little engines just to see if it would run them at all.

I haven’t checked the nozzle in my gasifier lately but I’ll bet that would get it to melt.

My charcoal making would need to get much larger scale and faster to feed even a small car but it’s nice to see that it could be done.

[d100f (Dave & Brian)]

Hi Brian , have you looked at other styles of retorts for making your charcoal ?
As mentioned before most of my fuel comes from the wood heater in my house , but if i have wood out on my property that needs converting to charcoal i use a version of the Hookway retort , simple to build , mine does not have the 90 deg bend in the pipe , my pipe goes from the very bottom of the drum and out the top , and i light a small fire underneath it with the nasty rubbish wood , bark and leaf’s to start the reaction going , it uses very little wood to get the wood inside the drum to start converting to charcoal and it has very little smoke issue’s with mainly dry wood inside , but whatever retort you use its always important to try and get your wood as close to the same thickness as possible .

The best charcoal retort kiln in the world?

Dave

[tcholton717 (Tom Holton)]

I have one barrel that I run like that but without the wood gas vent. I’ll have to add that. I have an open barrel tilted like the Chuck Whitlock design that I burn longer branches and sticks in. I get a lot of charcoal from my wood burner during the six months that we are burning our 8 + cords of fire wood. With my little hand cranked grinder I can break down a five gallon bucket of charcoal and sift it by hand in less than 10 minutes. None of it is very complicated.

[BrianAltEnergy (Brian Madera)]

My batch of charcoal is still pretty warm so it’s going to take another day before I can dump it out and see what I got.

That retort looks like a good idea and I might try building one if I can find the right stuff.

I was playing with my camp stove to see how it worked. Had too many holes so I brazed the lower ones on the side closed.

I made this year’s ago and never did really use it because it is a bit too small.

I broke up some little pieces of kiln dried pine and filled it up.

I used an old paint can as a chimney.

This is just after the flames went out.

Took the chimney off, slid it over to block the bottom holes, and put a paint can lid on the top.

Only a small hand full of charcoal but it didn’t look bad. I hand sorted it and put it in my gasifier.

Not really enough to do anything but didn’t take very long and proved that the idea works.

[d100f (Dave & Brian)]

Hi Brian you said your batch of charcoal is
"still pretty warm "
would worry me that its still burning away inside maybe keep your eyes out for some 5 gallon tins with lids or even a large oil drum with a lid so you can shovel out your coals after maybe 1 hour of cooling into a good sealed drum .
Dave

[tcholton717 (Tom Holton)]

I thought the same thing when I read that Dave. When I am done burning in my 55 gallon barrel I cap the bottom air feed and replace the lid with the stack with just a lid. There is a vacuum created within the sealed drum and sucks the lid tight. By the next morning the load is cooled and ready to grind.

[BrianAltEnergy (Brian Madera)]

Dave and Tom you were right. I just checked on it again and it was still hot so I broke down and dumped water on it.

I was trying not to resort to that but better than letting it all burn up. I’ll leave it in the barrel another night and see what’s left. Still looks like a good amount but over a day of smoldering had to waste a good bit.

I have more dry charcoal so I can wait for this batch to dry or call it forge fuel but I’m going to have to check my tank before doing any more. My garbage can doesn’t seal air tight but I think the dirt I put around the base to close the air holes was too dry and was still letting enough air in to keep it from smothering itself out.

I don’t have any metal buckets or drums with tight fitting lids but I’ll have to check around and see if I can find some.

[KristijanL (Kristijan Leitinger)]

Its amazing how long will a barrel of charcoal hold an ember. Days! Usualy, if this happens, you got a “cold” barrel of charcoal and just a tiny ember somewhere, its preety much game over. Only water will save it. As the newly baked charge cools down, there are still some gases produced and they push the air away untill the charcoal is cold below ignition temp. Its cruicial to take advantige of this. But once air gets in and its just a tad to warm, it will never cool again.
Woorth mentioning, this is with equipment most of us work with. A pinhole here, a crack there… if everything seals perfectly no problem but it rarely does.

If my batch of charcoal was particulary “hot” and l suspect charcoal will not offgas much more, l will throw a bit of water in before sealing it to cool. Same effect, water will boil and push away air.

[KristijanL (Kristijan Leitinger)]

Oh, also, charcoal can auto ignite. The porous structure realy wants to have something bound to it and it will do so with preety much anything. Oxigen being first… the newly formed “raw” charcoal needs to saturate with oxigen to a point, and this reaction is exothermic and has been prooven to cause autoignition.

I dont know for sure, but lm preety confident thats the case l observed many times. When l open the door of the kiln, and air gets in, after a few moments the charcoal starts to “sing”. It cracks and wines, tiny high pitched clicks. I bet thats the charcoal breathing in the air, causing the structure to change a bit thus cracking

[r_wesseling (Rindert Wesseling (Louisville,CO))]

If you get into using TLUDs the biggest piece of wisdom I can give you is; DRY wood. Here in Colorado this should be no problem, but I have messed it up a few times and made a lot of smoke.
This is the way I store my and dry my wood. On the left I have apple wood that is nice for barbecue. In the middle is rough wood of all kinds, including avocado seeds, peach pits, and what ever other fruit stones the house produces. On the right you see old dog food bags neighbors have saved for me. They contain charcoal.
Rindert

[BrianAltEnergy (Brian Madera)]

Rindert, that’s a really nice idea for drying the wood. Lots of airflow.

This is the result from my full barrel of wood. It more than filled the bucket shown before crushing or screening it with heavy, wet charcoal. I was hoping for twice that amount but probably lost a lot from it smoldering away for over a full day. I’ve gotten more volume than that from much smaller amounts of wood.

This is what I picked out that needs thrown back in the next batch.

I examined my barrel and didn’t really find anything different than it had been so I think KristijanL’s explanation is right. It probably didn’t get enough of the air blocked initially and a glowing coal remained but wasn’t producing enough gases to put it all out so it continued to slowly spread. I should have added a little bit of water earlier when I first noticed it was still hot instead of waiting so long and then drenching it to make sure it was all put out. I did notice (too late) that my dirt that I shovel around the barrel to block the air holes was pretty dry so it probably didn’t seal those holes good enough.

Gary’s barrel just had slots at the base and probably has a tighter fitting lid so the dirt around the base would have a better chance of blocking enough of the air to put it out.

Oh well, if this batch dries, I should have at least 2 hours worth of engine fuel from that little pile of charcoal but it should have made more.

[BrianAltEnergy (Brian Madera)]

It’s a cool, damp day here today so needed a little heat in the house.

I threw this little shovel full of coals back but, as the temperature gets colder and the furnace is needed more, this could be the best option for the charcoal supply. I didn’t have an airtight bucket/barrel or a bucket of water to dump those coals and they might not have been fully converted but heat for the house and engine fuel charcoal at the same time sounds good.

[d100f (Dave & Brian)]

Hi Brian , I use a few old saucepan’s with loose fitting lids i can place on the pans inside the fire and fill inside so nothing ends up on the living room floor then once full place the lids on and take them outside , there i have a 10 gallon bucket with lid ,i tip the pan full into the larger bucket and then tap the charcoal down with a piece of 2x4 to crush it so i can get more into the bucket works like a dream and never had it burn away , i also choose what wood to burn when i am harvesting engine grade charcoal as normal split cut fire wood takes too long and because i have a wetback i need real hot heat for the radiators around the house so i burn demolition timbers from old houses being pulled down or hard wood pallets ,that way i get at least a gallon an hour of charcoal .
Dave