Wondering if anyone has built a gasifier stove for making charcoal instead of a retort? Would a retort work better? I built a gasifier stove from a poultry drinker yesterday and all that’s left after the burn is charcoal. I feel like the gasifier wood be less wasteful as you wouldn’t need to burn any wood that wasn’t been used for the charcoalling process.
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Hi justin, the tlud stove is a gasifier stove really. A lot of charcoal gasifier people use them to make their charcoal. I started that way but eventually your addiction to charcoal grows beyond your need for cooking and you make something bigger. In my case a 50 gallon tlud…
Cheers, David
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Excuse my lack of knowledge, but is a TLUD just a retort?
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All good. So yes it’s a retort with good air control. It stands for top lit up draft. You light the top layer and create a layer of hot charcoal which breaks down and fully combusts all the volatiles coming off the wood below. The heat layer moves down and converts it all to charcoal. Then you cover or wet the load once it is all charcoal or burn it down to ash if you prefer.
Another very good idea from Gary Gilmore.
His Keystone stove.
The bucket in a stove fuel bunker does a couple of things exceptional well.
You can load one charge and then a second easily later if you need more heat.
It also uses its own heat to cook its own fuel for a more rapid conversion of raw wood to char. I think this is one of the best I ever saw.
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I have seen several designs that use a rocket stove, and a closed retort, but rocket stoves need regular feeding. After you get it started, If you have a closed retort, you can pipe the gases from that to feed the fire and it will sustain the process.
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