Reason you didn't get as much as expected: you placed the split wood horizontally with huge gaps in-between wood then sealed - you sealed in a stack of oxygen with the wood so it could burn away like in a regular fire. What you need to do is stack wood vertically next to each other absolutely minimising air gaps, pack as tightly as possible (bash them together with hammer if necessary) fill entire barrel (container - whatever) from bottom to top and then just do exactly what you did - high yield then, hope this helps
Thanks for the video... you think next time you could probably muffle the audio a little when you're whaling away on metal so my ears don't start bleeding? LOL
I live in Thailand and make a lot of charcoal. There are three main ways I learnt from the locals how to do it. I have a drum but it is much simpler, with one small hole in the lid and a perforated base. Takes too long to describe how I do it. The other way with really huge pieces like tree stumps, I use a big pit. It takes a month to cool down but can make up to five large sacks of prime charcoal. The simplest way though is to start a wood fire and when the wood at the bottom is glowing pick it out with tongs and drop it in water.
Also, exhaustion holes should be placed at the bottom of the chamber. That would not let oxygen inside the chamber, plus woodgases would self-fuel the pyrolysis process from the bottom. That would let your feedstock to be evenly and cleanly carbonized, rather than partially oxidized (burnt).
I suggest chipping the wood if that’s possible because it increases your surface area so you don’t get those big chunks that are half charcoal half wood. This also allows you to fill the tort more and you’re able to process more at once. If you do this don’t let it burn so long because much of your yield was burned already. By far the best design I’ve seen though!
Thanks. I've since done a few different experiments and have had better yield. My next set up is going to be welded on the bottom end and I'm going to use mud/clay to seal the chimney on top.
looks like your charcoal maybe ignited at some point? thats where all the ash came from. a better seal on the flue that sits in the fire pit or maybe drench the charcoal after a burn. interesting design though! Good work..
Different than my setup. I have a 30lb grease drum inside of a 55 gal drum. Charcoal wood goes inside small drum. Then it goes inside large drum upside down. Fuel wood goes around the small drum inside large drum. Have a couple sections of chimney pipe attached to lid. Air holes in bottom of large drum. Light and put on the lid. Gets a good draft going. You can tell when the charcoal wood starts to off gas. The fire intensifies from the wood gas. Have a lot of apple trees so have plenty of hard wood. Resulting lump charcoal works great in my grill and charcoal smoker. Am currently working on a charcoal brake rotor forge.
I have made three different size charcoal forges and a brake drum with two 3/16" plates in a slope to the blower hole has worked better than my others with a small fan and a dimmer light switch to control fan speed and I can tell you from experience that it is pretty efficient and gets hot enough to easily forge knives and machetes, swords, arrowheads ect. The one thing I've learned is to heat just enough steel you can work before it goes cold again and it's all experimenting would different steels to see how they move and how the structure changes in metal on a molecular level it's kind of crazy the way some steels react. I sure hope you make a forge it is fun to do and it is fun to move metal but something I didn't know before I started is charcoal does not need a ton of air, good luck and don't use aluminum anyting for a fire pot or anything like that the temperatures Forge reaches will melt aluminum easily and if you need more of a bowl shape fire Ash makes a great insulator just don't get it too wet just enough to make it look like Portland concrete mortar is more than enough and then set a heat lamp over it for a day or two and then burn a small fire in it to cure completely I sure hope my comment helps, one last warning though forging is addictive LOL be safe have fun Burns will happen just don't burn yourself too badly and get a thick pair of gloves
The water vapor phase and methane phase are about the same time length, and it's easy to tell when the water vapor phase is over (because flames start shooting out). If the flames continue for longer than the water vapor did, then there's combustion going on inside the barrel and you just have to stop the process. You won't have perfect charcoal if that happens, but it'll still be usable and it won't have all burned up.
... I used to make charcoal for bbq until I realised that I might just as well burn the wood on the bbq and save myself a lot of time and effort ... hardwood only ... oak, ash, sycamore, cherry and hazel ...
You left it burning. An there was oxygen, that pipe does not cute off the oxygen as soon as the fire went out oxygen rush back in an regnited the charcoal. You have an almost perfect set up but the pipe goes to the top an no farther. Onces you cook the charcoal your suppose to prevent oxygen from getting back in. In a sense smother it so fire can't start up. Just extend the pipe an make sure that you put a collar on the pipe and cap the pipe, those little holes allowed the oxygen back in an you lost your charcoal. An the heat was not evenly distributed. So you ended up with wood that was not fired enough. At lest you have done better then some. Thank You Loader.
My subsequent burns have become better. I've found that the CO2 produced from combustion actually puts out any fire inside the barrel. I'm going to make a modified barrel and try to make it more air tight.
@@KimballCody I compared your method with the one in /watch?v=_g6Q7RmxG0I - You use multiple holes for outlet of wood gas, while that other video only make one tiny hole. From my experience, some of those multiple holes may become inlet (instead of outlet) for air into your charcoal, which bring oxygen in. Perhaps that's what burn some of your charcoal. - He put the hole on top of the can, while you put the holes on the bottom of the drum (he used can, not drum, so it's kind of smaller scale than yours). The hole on top made him easier to plug the can as soon as the wood gas was exhausted.
Uncontrolled air flow, and uneven heating was the problem. Take your drum and drill one line of 1/4 inch holes every four inches from bottom to top of the drum. Fill the drum with wood, size does not matter, largest wood closest to the holes, seal the drum. To be clear, the drum is completely sealed except for the 1/4 inch holes. Tip the drum onto two end supports, (bricks etc.) on its side, HOLES DOWN, two to three inches off the ground. Put wood along the length of the drum on both sides and light it. You will only need enough wood to evenly heat the drum to begin the gasification process. The wood gas will come out the holes on the bottom, ignite from the fire and augment the heating of the drum. No O2 can enter the holes until it cools. i think you will find this technique to be far more efficient.
Additionally, if you have plenty of wood, put only one, 1/2 inch hole on top, with no holes on the bottom. What will come out that 1/2 inch hole will be wood gas, (mostly hydrogen) run that through a filter, (two step, dryer and simple sand) feed it directly into the intake of your genset, and you have electricity, when the grid goes down and you don't have any gasoline.
Your lid has a gap that makes oxygen to get sucket in to the wood, so you burn it UP instead of getting charcol. You culd fiks it with a weld or maby some dirt and water and make a paste ✌️ cool Setup, thinking about making something like this my self
@@KimballCody mud for seal is gonna be good 👌😎 ive just learn for my self when i tried smaller one for test, that some oxygen to 0 oxygen makes a big difference on how mic is getting burnd up en the charcol being left ✌️🙌
Lol. Just did my first barrel and had the same results with some of it having a little wood left. I use the barrel inside a barrel method. I didn't have ash issues, but I clearly didn't get mine hot enough.
I am looking at so much energy coming out of the top of your kiln. I do think all that energy would be more effective heating the barrel or another kiln on top of that one. Most likely you are not getting good heat transfer to the charcoal.
There are different ways of conserving the energy. Some retorts redirect the gas and have it burn under the barrel. That involves a double chamber, pipes, valves etc. My set up is one step above a dirt pit covered with corrugated sheet metal.
The alternative method entails adding grass clippings and 4 Big Mac wrappers to a bowl, add a pinch of rosemary and urine, mix ingredients, marinate in fridge for 24 hours....Voila, charcoal. If anyone is interested I also have a new ebook coming out: "How to build a Generation IV Nuclear Reactor with things you have lying around the house".
There should be no ash. It would appear you have a leak somewhere. Also, pack your wood more densely, leaving as few open spaces between pieces. Real charcoal "tinkles" when broken.
I must applaud you for putting out this video it shows true character it is a nice refreshing change from the average if you were to seal that chamber more say with fireplace putty it would have worked better . Thank you for taking time out of your day and posting this video it was pleasant to watch
Where I come from we make it in the ground. Dig a ditch. Pack up the wood on top each other. Cover with leaves grass etc. Start fire in the front of ditch then cover with soil.
I have fond memories of riding through the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain, specifically the Pamlico Sound surrounding Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville NC, and following my nose to some hidden gem of BBQ often down a cinder road through the tidal marshes, with no signs to point the way to the awesome food. People just knew where to go! Kind of "locals only". BUT one perfect day, instead of my nose leading me to slow cooked fire licked meats, I followed the smoke and learned something. It was how a family and their friends and neighbors ran, since the Reconstruction, a large former crab/shrimp "processing" shed turned into a "charcoal shack" where a family business survived by trucking in hardwood scrap to make charcoal to sell to mostly individual consumers and small BBQ joints vs large commercial accounts. Deciduous hardwoods don't exactly thrive in the conditions that are present in that region, so one couldn't just fire up the chainsaw and harvest from blow downs after a late summer hurricane.
You have the basic idea right be you lack the details to be efficient. Get rid of the chimney you dont need it. Just fill a drum full of wood as you did then install lid air tight. Install a pipe out of thside of drum near top and place a valve onto it so that after gasification is done you close valve to make the drum airtight. You can pipe the gases under the drum and use them to help heat the drum. But it must be monitored so when gasses die off the valve must be shut to create the airtight conditions needed to stop the burning process that turns charcoal to ash.
good points. I was going to go that route with the pipe but found that the chimney was the easiest route. I've been able to make more than enough charcoal and very little ash. each burn I've been getting better and better.
Ken Jett ............I'm a lil confused, can you draw a diagram of that drum with the exhaust pipe plz. I can't visualize it..I Really appreciate it Thku
Baruc Barbers i wish i could i am no artist or architect. I understand some are more visual but i gave basic directions those that have common sense in basic engineering can figure it out. If anylacks that ability they probably should not be attempting to build this device. It can be very dangerous if not done properly. Sorry dont mean to sound rude but this should not be attempted without proper knowledge and understanding of how charcoal is made.
Wow, when you decide to make charcoal, you go to town on it. Good job. I probably would have filled a five gallon metal pail and sealed it and would've been satisfied with that, to make activated charcoal for filtering water.
This reminds me of when I was growing up in the caribbean. The natives made charcoal, as it was their preferred method of cooking. They would make a pile of branches, start it on fire, cover it with dirt and let it smolder for 24-48 hrs i believe. At that point they would pull off the dirt and let it die, or, they would let it burn for, 60 hrs i believe and then pull off the dirt and throw water onto it, and it would powder down to lime, which they used for whitewash etc
Too much of a gap around your pipe allowed flames to enter the chamber and allowed to wood, or a majority of it to actually burn. You need to seal that gap off better. Or better yet rebuild your kiln to burn on it's side with a single chimney coming off thus allowing for a sealed pyralosis chamber resulting a much better yield of charcoal. Check out Rick Rabjon's video. His kiln works excellent.
Thank you for the video; it gives good ideas. With the way you placed the wood in the drum the amount of charcoal looks about right, maybe. It may have been the wood too. Soft wood doesn’t produce much. I did not recognize the names of the woods you used. It didn’t look like there was a lot of ash in your retort after it was done. If there was it would be an indicator of your charcoal burning up. I use Birch, it is the hardest in my state, and pack the barrel tight. I only get about 2/3s of a barrel. Cooling the charcoal down with water is a silly idea! Anyway thanks for sharing.
KimballCody just mix up some mud/ clay from the yard and seal around it. Oxygen isn't necessarily the problem anyway. Pyrolization isn't exactly the absence of oxygen, but the prevention of combustion above combustion temperatures. Is just easier to facilitate that by excluding oxygen. To wit, I've made batches of char by just baking wood on a cookie sheet over a fire before. And many a thanksgiving Turkey has been pyrolized in an unattentive cook's oven. So long as you prevent ignition, combustion won't occur. But that's tedious. The reason your quality is poor is it's not getting to temperature and staying there long enough. The threw flue pipe is fine, but once you achieve combustible exhaust off gassing from the tank, cap the flue at the top. The pressure from the tank will push gases down into the fire and it will ignite. That combustion rate of the gas is several orders higher than solid fuel, so that gas combustion will heat the tank, hotter than the wood fire will ever get it. This perpetuats the cycle. Then just leave it alone. Leave it till it stops releasing gases and dies by itself.
KimballCody honestly though I've gotten away from kilns, retorts etc, they're just too finicky. The Japanese got it right with the kontiki method, which is what I use now. If I even bother. I made a lifetimes supply of charcoal with two kontiki runs so now i usually I just make a brush pile, light the top, let it burn down till is not producing flame and then quench it with water. Spread it out to dry, sift it, store it.
I think you did well here. Looking through the comments i agree with some...completely sealing out the air as soon as you are done the initial "burn" does prevent charcoal loss in my tests. One thing i prefer to do is to use a TLUD (top lit up draft). I do this because i only burn the wood i want to make into charcoal and don't use extra to heat it like you are doing. As soon as my flames burn out from the initial gasification process i seal the container and prevent the charcoal from burning further. I think i have videos that will show you what i mean....if not still up i will make one on request for you. Keep experimenting
this is a wwaste of wood and time, just get a regular barrel, fill it with wood and light it, let it burn until you can see that theyre coals, flip the barrel over and fill the holes with dirt and let it sit over night. you get a bigger yield and no extra wood used. also you have to have the bung on the top once its flipped, you put the bung on when it stops producing the woodgas.
The fire was too hot and too quick. Lower temp fire and let burn slowly longer. Like cooking food, it’s easy to burn, easy to under cook. Hard to cook perfect!!
Why can't you just put a grating over a campfire as long as the wood is all natural and not treated with any chemicals etc.? I've seen on the food channels where these BBQ joints just throw logs in a smoker/grill and put slabs of meat inside, close the lid and come back in three hours
When your hot charcoal stopped giving off wood gas, the charcoal sat there and smoldered using the ambient air that came in through that large gap around your stack until there was not enough heat/ oxygen to support combustion.
I live in a 3rd world country for a while and they made charcoal by having large fire pits and once the fire is going good they cover the wood with dirt. They would leave it for days. I remember going by the charcoal pits to see smoke rising from the soil.
I heard that if you don’t quench the charcoals when they’re done pyrolizing they can reignite and keep burning. But either way, very cool rocket stove retort!
I just watched another video where they sealed the barrel with dirt and mud after the burn. They took the barrel off of the burner and stuck it in a hole in the dirt. Covered the top with a piece of sheet metal and covered it with dirt. Wouldn't take much more effort to add this to your procedure. Would solve the problem of air getting in. Really good video. I have a friend with a welding machine. Should be pretty easy to make. Not bad at all for a first run. At least you tried and you learned something. Thanks for sharing. Very cool.
A more even heat around the barrel should help. It seems like the wood at the bottom turns to charcoal first and starts to turn into ash as the wood at the top is just begining to change. You should also find a way to cover up all the gaps were air can get in when the flames from the gas die down. The charcoal will ignite and slowly burn if there's any oxygen. i saw big gaps between the lid and middle pipe thing. You should also cover the pipe when the gas stops burning.
Frankly, it's one of the cleanest way I see so far, but the charcoal is kind of over cook. By the way, I think you can put one more drum on top of the rocket stove, that will be 200% efficient. LOL
i enjoyed the video, but i still don't understand the need to make charcoal for your grill. you had plenty of red hot coals in your small fire pit. i use oak & maple natural wood in my grill. i take the lid off my 22 inch webber and remove the cooking grate, then take small twigs that fall into my yard from my big oak tree and start a small fire on the bottom grate of my webber. once it gets going good i add some bigger pieces of oak. fill my grill about 1/2 full and let it burn with the lid off until i am left with red hot coals then it's time to put the lid back on and start cooking. i guess the only advantage i could see to using charcoal over wood is you get red hot coals quicker with charcoal than burning wood but not if you take into account the extra time and wood it took you to make that charcoal in the first place. what am i missing here???
Your charcoal burned because you didn’t seal the area between the flue and lid which could be done with clay. It also didn’t get hot enough which could be dealt with by wrapping it with rockwool insulation or something else. This is a very solid design though and I’ll be using some of its aspects!
Thank you. I've since be able to get better yield by taking it out and cooling off the burning portions. I'm going to reverse the position of the barrel and seal off the lid with fire mortar
I use a barrel and a half with a chimney mounted to the half barrel. Fill the bottom barrel (1/2" air holes in the bottom) with wood light the top of the fuel in the full barrel and then place the half with chimney pipe on top. That's a large rocket stove. The 1/2" holes in the bottom of the barrel will always be less intake air than the @8" chimney, causing a deficit of O2. The O2 supply will necessarily combine with woodgas from the top of the fuel and burn down to the bottom leave charcoal in its place. I have run a whole barrel of oak leaves as an experiment and the individual leaves are charcoalized but otherwise intact.
Baruc Barbers one 55 gal drum plus one 55 gal drum cut in half plus one chimney...I used 8" hvac ducting. The bottom (whole barrel) is filled with fuel to be charcoalized. Then the half barrel with chimney installed in top is fitted (by cutting alternate patterns and sliding together). Bottom barrel has 1/2" holes (mine has 20 or so) and is set on concrete blocks for an up draft. Light the top of fuel, then slide the top with chimney on. The heat going up the chimney pulls air in the bottom hole, but not enough O2 to completely burn. When all is mostly burned, pull off top with chimney put on solid top and take barrel off blocks. The solid top and covering of holes by ground contact stops the burn. Let cool and then collect a third of a barrel of charcoalized fuel.
It's all relative to your situation. It's cheaper to eat at McDonald's vs making a healthy meal at home. It's cheaper to buy a gallon of milk vs buy a cow, feed and time to milk it. It's cheaper to hire a repairman vs aquire the tools and knowledge to fix a sink. I could go on and on but I hope you understand the point. It seems that you and I are in different pages when looking at value, worth and expense.
