I came across this link while having my morning tea , strange how over the years i had missed this one , although i do remember the name of it and so maybe i had seen it and at the time not thought more about it . The first one is the Aussie build and then there is an English version of the same idea .
Living in Australia but born and bred in the UK i am torn with what one is the better one , so in fairness to both i will go with the prettiest
I am thinking that this may make an ideal charcoal Gasifier for me, and maybe one i wont mind taking photo’s of and showing people instead of the rusting out 55 gallon drums i use .
I can cut the legs down a little as i am only a short arse and then i would only need a soap box then to stand on to refill . the top has a opening pipe of 250mm that can be closed of with a blanking cap and the outlet on the top side looks to be about 120mm
Dave
When I clean my fire pit I put my char in a blue powder bag and wash it.
This keeps dust down and I get a clean wet product i store in my shops attic until needed.
Mesh is large enough you can shake the dust out of your char.
Its just messy…
I like wet way myself.
I wash the dust out and its good for the lawn.
I prefer snuffing char in an air tight container (not completely air tight, but enough to snuff combustion). The result is dry char, seems simpler to me to remove dust than water.
I agree about snuffing it out , the thing i liked about this idea was that it could be adopted to be used for larger chunks of wood not just wood chips , and once the indicator goes off you could release the charcoal into the trough underneath and then shovel it into air tight containers all without lifting bending and rolling over drums , the comments on you tube were a bit unfair really , as this is just a method for making bio char and not to produce gas for heating cooking or running a engine as most of the people had said in the comments underneath what a waste of energy do something with the gas !
Anyway i thought the retort was pretty neat .and was hoping someone like Kristijan would think about building it for his new downdraught charcoal gasifier that he is hoping to run on damp or slightly wet charcoal .
Dave
It is neat. The shut off indicator is good and it is fairly smoke free. It still has brands. I am not sure I dunk it in water for engine grade charcoal. It washes the ash off, and there is no dust, but you also increase the pore size and water holding capacity so it takes a while to dry out.
I came across another cool Bio Retort this morning this time it looks to be made in the USA no idea why i have not seen this before as its been on line 9 over years now
Anyway as soon as i saw it i thought of you Tom and your greenhouse rocket stove heaters .
Yeah, I have been thinking about something like Bill Knauss’s setup too. The only difference would be I would use a heat-x like the ones they use on rocket stoves.
Rindert
