Well the gasifier got its maiden voyage completed. We had a wicked storm come through and the power went out. I had the gasifier/generator running for 3+ hours supplying the house with power. I have an air leak somewhere that I have to track down and the generator speed governor is not working correctly, but all in all it was a success. Most importantly, I got the expresso machine working. 
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Yes Marty the time you really really need it to work for real is the time you sit back and ponder how worth while all that effort was , and then you start thinking "I cant wait for another blackout " the last time was a week for me and 3 weeks for my neighbor’s power fed from a different sub station the storms causing a real night mare for the area .
Dave
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I agree that the tilted barrel or bathtub method is generally the best/simplest method for charcoal production (I have used retorts, kilns, air curtain kilns, TLUDs and other variations). The only simpler method is for those of us who live where commercial tree trimming is widespread (New Hampshire is the most tree covered state in the US). Tree trimming companies have a hard time getting rid of chips. They deliver a truckload to my home whenever I have room for them. I screen chips between 1 inch and 3/8 inch screens and pyrolyze in a giant TLUD with a small blower. Viola, engine grade fuel.
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Hi Bruce, with the tilted barrel setup do you get a half of a barrel full of engine grade Charcoal in each batch you burn or maked?
I was thinking on putting this idea over my fire pit. A barrel tilted at 45 ° in the fire pit full of small dried cherry wood sticks and branches. Put a lid on the barrel and start my pit fire for a evening burn cooking what was in side the barrel and making Charcoal on the out side in the fire pit. I know wood that has been retorted with out fire touching the wood is better Charcoal then the fire actually burning it and pyrolysis it down with ashes in it.
I have never tried this fire pit and barrel method before. With the 45 ° tilted barrel. Should be interesting to try out before the snow and cold comes into this area where I live. Being to cold of outside temperatures are counter productive for retorting.
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Hi Bob,
I have only used the tilted barrel as a direct burn kiln not as a retort. Yes, at 45* the barrel ends 1/2 full as sticks are added as the flames die down. I once tried a barrel cut at 45* but no better results and MUCH harder to seal off for cooling. If you need to eliminate smoke during startup, add an air manifold blowing across the opening (AKA, curtain kiln). The air flow captures and burns the smoke and speeds up the process. This creates a much hotter fire and required protective clothing and face shield for safe feeding.
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If you slowly reduce the tilt of the barrel, until it’s upright, you can nearly fill it with coals. There is some risk of being bored out of your mind by the time you do this. And a risk of singed whiskers and red forehead. A full(er) barrel seems like more than twice the time and work of half a barrel, but it may be a psychological effect. Maybe if you have really long hot dog roasters it would be okay. 
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Yes, indeed Bob, charcoal done this way is inferior in quality compared to kiln charcoal. Its much less dense and has way more ash. Bark and twigs have a much higher mineral content thain hearth wood. But it has a lot of up sides too. It is stupid simple and fast! Super low tec. This summer, l run out of charcoal twice on sepparate occasions with my BCS mower, helping a friend with hayharvest. I found a barrel, lit a fire and fed it twigs for half a hour. Doused with water for the steam to push out the air, lid on and after half a hour of cooling it was ready for refueling. No sifting, no grinding, just wetting to optinal mousture content. A nother 5 hours worth of runtime, all in under a hour. In those scenarios, making fuel on the go, charcoal is superior to raw wood.
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Bruce, lm so envious. Here woodchips are like gold. Our country too is over 60% wooded but the woodchips get sold to powerplants. Im not sure for now but last year they cost around 30$ a cubic yard.
Perhaps you culd convince those folks to haul some this way… l need mulch for my greenhouse
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Yes, I am indeed blessed. All kinds of good uses for these chips.
Have you had a chance to look at my proposed downdrafter design in Brian’s First Downdraft topic? I greatly value your thoughts and opinions.
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I have. Truth is, l only tryed the double flute downdraft as a proof of concept on my Škoda and then installed a WK hearth l had from my Mercedes, as was planed. This is about all of my experiance with it. I did build a downdraft with one central nozzle for my tractor and l had a lot of problems with slag creeping in the nozzle. Ended up having to drill it out way bigger thain l thod l shuld, to acomodate for slag buildup. Then it worked fine. Since then l installed Tones test gasifier but will probably install the original back, will show why on my thread.
Cody, Bob, Don and others have way more experiances.
Off the bat, my thinking about your drawing is you shuld certainly try it. At the wery least, for sure its gonna be better thain any updraft. And simpler thain going full air mantel nozzle type gasifier and more effective thain a single down facing nozzle as had l tryed.
I do think it shuld work good on a mobile unite, vibration shuld help with bridging. Only problem, like l sayd, might be slag and overheating the nozzle.
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Thank you Kristijan for this imput on twigs and small branches. Very good to know a quick easy way to make fuel. The old huge cherry wood pile behind the orchard next to me is full of twigs and small branches. The pile is over 30 years old in the middle of it. It seems cherry wood takes a long time to break down a rot away in our dryer climate we have here. This portable tilted barrel idea will work great with a 5 gallon bucket of water to put the finish Charcoal out fast and start a new batch. Can have more than one barrel working at a time. It is just fine sand where the pile is located, dig and put the barrel at 45° build a fire in it. K.I.S.S.
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Thank you, Kristin for your response. “gonna be better than any updraft” is what I needed to hear. I’m going to go for it. I have already cut the 7 inch loading hole in the top and the hole for the 4 inch gas outlet pipe. I’ll post pictures of the tuyere before installing it. It is fun and exciting to try something new.
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Tilling new ground. Keep us posted. I too am interested how this goes. Sure is simple to make if it works out.
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Thanks. I just ordered some compression connectors for EMT electrical conduit and a short sleeve of steel to fit over my schedule 80 pipe. These will allow me to seal the tuyere to the tank without welding. I hope this will allow me to change nozzle location, size and angles. I’ll start a new topic when I start putting all of this together.
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twigs typically burn hotter and faster and have more ash then thicker pieces. If you are going to try a closed retort, I would use those to provide the heat. Like a 55 gal barrel with the top on, then flip it upside down with the bung holes open, and put the twigs in your firepit. then when the gases escape from the barrel, it catches on fire and adds heat as well. You can also put the barrel on its side, and run a pipe from the bung back under the barrel, but that is more expensive, but possibly safer. There is a really old youtube, video where someone actually was rotated the barrel over the fire kind of like a bbq spit with the tube out of the barrel.
And of course, twigs are a good size for a rocket stove type of heater.
Me personally. I just hand feed the twigs into a 55-gallon barrel upright which is far from the best, but I need a new barrel as mine finally rusted out. at the bottom and doesn’t seal at the top anymore so I get like 10% of the char I should but I have too much brush and don’t want the pile.
As far as ‘rotting’, you need to walk or drive over the pile once or twice a year, to get contact with the ground for the bacteria and fungus to get contact with the soil. and tighten up the airspace so it traps the humidity inside the pile. And sometimes leaves will create a ‘roof’ and won’t let water in so you are breaking up that crust as well.
But especially with an orchard, if you have canker, which you probably do, you have to treat it as diseased and you want to burn/char it. just because the branch is dead and has been for a while doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the fungal spores on it.
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