I thought it would educational to see the retort in action from down below.
I want to thank all the members for your constructive criticism it helped me a lot to sort out some of the design flaws so I could correct them. The heavier chain for one, making the grate heavyweight, and the dropping the charcoal in water, this gives a larger yield. Using a cone shape on top for feeding the retort more wood as it is in operation cooking the wood down and making it a no smoke operation. Thank you all, and Yehovah for the inspiration to build this retort. You are all Awsome.
Bob
About the same yield as the last batch, but this one was more fun with the open fire and cooking over it. This worked great just put the left over wood into the retort with hot charcoal on top and let it cook the big brands down. In a half hour it was done and bagged up.
Here is the ash slurry and left over and charcoal in it that I scrapped out. When taking out the charcoal it came out pretty clean. The last little bit of charcoal I took out of the slurry by hand. The rest into the garden. I don’t think I used 5 gallons of water. So even in winter when the outside water is shut off I can still do this operation.
Now I have 2 half full bags of charcoal. Weight 45 pounds each. Wet charcoal is heavy. The water will slowly drain out, but I am planning on using it wet anyways.
Bob
Yes this is good 20% is easy even where I live here in the Northwest USA.
It is so wonderful and great we have so many people in our DOW membership that have a Master Craftsmen degrees in different fields. They are doers and showers to prove all the theories and the mathematical formulas that makes it work. Showing soild proof with their builds.
If you will just listen to their advice and constructive criticism you will succeed in your projects. I have proof of it and am showing here with this retort. I am still amazed of how fast this thing works. There is nothing in it right now and it has been hours after the fire has been out. Still to hot to touch on the inside but warm on the outer barrel surface. It is a cooker. I am wondering if I would fully insulate the retort inside the outer barrel if it would be even more efficient.
Bob
Good job Bob. Hat of…
Pirolized charcoal absorbs en enormus amount of water, be patient, it takes a long time to dry. 1 teaspoon of char has the same surface of a basketball court, it´s LARGE!!! very LARGE.
Greetings and a big embrace “latin style”.
Abner
Thank you, brother Abner. We continue our prayers for you and the people in your land. May Yehovah Almighty God bring peace and truth to you all. For His Name Sake to you may He Bless you in His Words Name Yeshua.
Greets and a big embrace back to you. “latin style”.
Bob
It has been a while for this project. I have learned through the years if you get stuck on something and I mean really stuck. Put it down and go work on something else. To day I figure it out on how to make this rocket stove retort work better.
I had a 5" pipe drop it into the center of the retort and the brake drum with a little grinding on the opening it will fit in snug, will just have to cut out the drum hole bigger for the 5" to go through. I ran the retort with out any insulation around it. So there was a lot of lost heat but it still made up to 530°f .
At the fire end it drafted great. The fire would make almost to the long pipe end above it is the drop down grate that holds the raw dry wood in side the retort. The hot heat can rise up but lacks oxygen to burn the wood. The heat exit the 5" pipe.
It did not take long for the temp. to get up to cooking wood. Now this was a no wood in the retort run. With no insulation, I just wanted to check the temps.
Add water and it is ready to go into my high banker to be washed clean and bagged after a little sun drying. I used just a quarter of a bag of soft wood chunks and the longer sticks. This was about 2 hour run.
Now to finish the retort up and start making some high quality hard cherry wood charcoal.
Bob
All cherry wood. Now this first run will be with out any insulation between the retort and the outer barrel. I just want to see how long it takes to make charcoal this way.
I am not even going to put any insulation on top. If it takes to long then I will insulate the side and top when using it.
The way I was going to do it was put pallet wood down into the barrel and light it up. But it would leave a lot of nails and ash to clean up in the yard. Also it would be more of a open fire or burning barrel look that is a bad thing durning the fire restrection season. I would have to stand out there cooking hotdogs all the time when retorting the wood.
We will see how it goes later today when I start the retort up and make a two hour run.
I have about two 55 gallon barrels of charcoal to wash through my highbank washer. It washes about 7 to 8 gallons a minute.
Bob
Okay now that it is dark all the way back into the firetube of the rocket stove I see glowing charcoal under where the cherry wood is sitting in the retort.
This means it is burning and working it’s way up into the wood in the retort. Hummm… looks like I will need to think of a way to seal up the top while running this retort. I have ceramic wool that would work. I will try it on the next run.
Bob
A little more thinking on this retort on the firetube part of the rocket stove I am going the build a plug to cap off the pipe when shuting this retort down. No air in and the fire should go out. After pulling all the charcoal bed out and what was down below the cherry wood into the water. I have more charcoal to clean. I’ll check the retort tomorrow I put a lid over the opening hopefully it will sniff the fire out.
Bob
This morning I went to the retort it was still warm. Oh, oh. Checked my sealed lid on the opening and it had slipped down and did not seal. Closed it tight this time, hope I have some charcoal left. If not well I just happen to have about 100 cords of more cherry wood some of it is 20 years old to turn into charchoal.
Bob
First, is that part of an old disk blade with the brake drum on top? or is that whole assembly from a brake drum?
Second, just put a pan of boiling water on top because you can see a big pan a long way off. Throw a stone in it. Then if the dog, a raccoon, or monkey runs off with the hotdogs, you can say you are making stone soup, and then when the fire dept shows up ask them if they came to add something to the pot.
I thought so… I was secretly hoping it was like semi drum brake dust guard that I could use as a blade. It is all good, you made me think of something else.
I think I have it hot hot it is at 900 °f and the paint is starting to burn.
Down in the tube where I pull the charcoal is water to cool the char down quickly after it falls though the 1" grate holes. By the end of the run I will have about 200 plus miles of charcoal.
Great idea and set up Bob , never quenched my charcoal in the past due to my units being updraft , i may have a go if i ever get the time and chance to build a downdraft unit based on Matts designs, at the moment we are having one terrible wet spring not a great idea if summer comes and everything grows fast and then dry’s out we are going to be in bush fire season from hell before we know it .
Dave
HI Dave, when you have a down draft gasifier like my double flute it loves wet charchoal. I was thinking on building a hopper like a WK hopper with cooling tubes a water recovery to a tank for mine. If I use wet charcoal 10% + water moisture I do not need water drip at all. KISS. Just Keeping It Super Simple is the best way for any gasifier system if it is posible.
Bob
Hi Bob , yep i agree totally i have always stayed with the simple fire due to the KISS since 2010 , but then over the past 2 years i have experimented with a couple of downdrafts at first none would give me the light and forget of the Simple Fire , my last attempt to date has come close , but due to very hot gas output i thought i must be doing something wrong i have watched Dons video of his twin flute running ,yours , and Kristijans & Georgio and many others downdraft units , i think i was inspired by Matts build as he uses the same type inverter generators that i do , so as soon as i get a workshop finished at my place i can dedicate time to putting together a better working system based on a system like Matts and then a twin flute system like yours and Dons as i see the advantages of being able to use damp charcoal for sure , this has been the worst couple of months up here in the hills its been rain after rain flood after flood for what seems like forever .
Dave
