Our Small Two Chamber Biochar Oven 

Nice oven, I have just few things: First, it is better to make holes for gasses to escape in the bottom part of the inner container, because the gases help to heat the wood inside when they burn. Second, it is definitely better to quench the biochar with water rather than let it cool. The hot biochar still smoulders and consumes oxygen, which decreases yield (it burns away). Also, biochar can get hard to wet with water when its cool, but it soaks a lot of water easily when its hot. Water steam produced during quenching can also increase the surface area as it removes tar from the pores.

Now this I can do! I'm only on a suburban block so the big drum units are totally out of the question. I've got something for the outer vessel and probably the inner one as well. I'm thinking of using a bowl as a lid with the center cut out and steel venting as you use for the chimney. I'm doing my best to reduce inputs as much as I can to the garden (unless they are free) This is a great way of using up more branch cuttings and bigger woodchip to make something I would otherwise have to buy. I'll skip the holes in the center vessel to get the gases to pop out the bottom and feed the fire like others have said. Nice video.

Details about drying and sorting the feedstock is invaluable. Haven’t seen it in other videos. Thanks. 😎👨‍🌾🔥

Really great! Love how you inform without claiming to be an expert.

Great instruction and very clear video i love to watching it and also very helpful for farmer's like me, Thanks so much and have a good day.

Wow. Biochar sounds so beautiful!

Great info., I've been looking for a way to create charcoal, in smaller burn chambers, for a couple of months. You, I believe you have given me the answer. Thank you! Joe

great video, yet again. very informative. I'm a novice who likes to try different things, I like the idea of scaling down the retort and chamber.

That is really a cool biochar stove, would like to try that myself next season, when I can gather the supplies to make it. Thanks again Patrick, as usual your explanation is impeccable. All the best, Frank

Very impressive! Well done. Thanks for sharing!

Great video presented with many details!!! I enjoyed it very much!!!

Extremely inspiring... Thank you sir, for sharing your passion and putting great effort into this youtub channel... I just found this channel today and subscribed right away.. LOL.. Thank you again

Luckily my hubby is handy one and will show him this video to make me that oven! Thanks for sharing!

Very ingenious Patrick!

Thank you so much for this fantastic video!

HEY O.Y.R. I NEVER MADE BIOCHAR BEFORE BUT WATCHING YOUR VIDEO TAUGHT ME HOW. I MODIFIED IT THOUGH BY FILLING AN OLD METAL TOOL BOX WITH A LATCH FULL OF WOOD CHIPS AND PLACING IT IN MY WOOD BURNING STOVE. I MADE BIOCHAR WHILE HEATING MY KITCHEN. IT WORKED GREAT. THANKS Q

Vey good. But what you made is charcoal. It becomes ‘biochar’ once inoculated with biotic life. And minerals. A good idea is to soak it in the leachate that you get from a worm farm or rot some nettles or comfrey in a bucket and soak the charcoal in that. For a few weeks Before applying to your soil at the ratio of 5% hope that’s useful

This will be a great reference for my oven... you know someday, when I have time LOL. Your bio-char oven looks fantastic and is small enough to not cause a big stir in the neighborhood :)

this is brilliant

I really want to do this as a winter project! Thanks for posting.

OK, a few suggestions. First put insulation around the outer chamber, it'll concentrate more heat into the inner one. Second, don't waste the hydrogen and methane gases produced by the pyrolysis, use them also in the burn. Seal those three holes in the inner chamber, then put a couple of pieces of straight wire in the bottom of the outer chamber, that way the waste gases escape out of the bottom and get redirected to the burn. Finally, you might want to look up how the Japanese make 'white charcoal', it's a quick cool down method that produces a type of char with some interesting properties.

Good video nice batch of char.

Great job on the video! You are hired! 😎

fascinating! I guess the charcoal would be great for drawing also.

Really great! Love how you inform without claiming to be an expert. Do you think the alcohol used to ignite the fuel would I able you from using the left over ash? Thanks.

Thanks mr...

Thank you for this video

OneYardRevolution This is great, I thank you for making this video and I have saved it for future reference! Since we are living a little too close to people right now, I think we will wait to make our own once we get our property. Something to look forward to. =)

I have been wondering what to do about the hydrocarbon gasses from the pyrolysis process for a while. All the videos I have stumbled upon simply mention that they are there and don't explain anything about them. I have been wanting to learn more about this subject simply for carbon sequestration, and not so much for fertilization. Thank you so much for explaining and showing how you dealt with this.

You could pack wooden shims around the out of the inner chamber, they would be small enough to either be broken up or put in whole

very good video thanks

Get rid of the holes on the top of your inner retort. They need to be on the -bottom- and I am not sure they are really needed since you haven't -sealed- the chamber. They are only for letting the gases out and keep it from exploding. If you let the gases out at the bottom, it will add considerable heat to your system, and you will most likely not need to add extra fuel during your burn.

2:21 well thought modification. 👌🏻👌🏻

thank you sir

I wish my neighbors were all like you!

A layer of rock wool insulation around the large pot will mean higher temperatures and speed up the effect.

Brilliant

I haven't read every coming so forgive me if it's already been mentioned. What you have there is charcoal. If I'm not mistaken biochar is when you mix it with nutrients beneficial to plant growth and add it to your garden. It provides a long-term, steady release nutrients fertilizing whatever you put it on.

Hello brother, thank you very much for sharing us this video. It is really helpful, and I got too much from this publication. you also explained well, and if there are negative comments given to you, don't give it a shit. many people are negative, and jeleaous.

Thanks for sharing this idea. i dropped the idea of making biochar till i came across this almost smokeless method which might work for me, here in Delhi, where there is a ban on burning any kind of plant material. One ques - If there are no holes on top of the inner chamber, how will you know when Biochar is ready? Seeing this video and reading through the comments is invigorating. I learnt a lot. So before starting to make this i might as well test the soil ph in my garden. Assuming it is acidic, do you think i should add Biochar to my garden as it is in a state of utter neglect and depletion because of a v.indifferent previous owner

old people have been making that for years in the Caribbean we use it to cook with back in the old days. never knew i could put it in a garden

I was watching video that Dale shared and in it they showed how to make biochar about 400 years ago. Interesting viewing. BBC's Tales from the green valley episode 9 FULL

great video!

if you put the holes on the inside pot at the bottom the gasses will feed the outside fire and there may be no need to add extra fuel because its said to make the fire last longer, esentialy you will be using the inside gas to char the inside wood

Fantastic video as ever. That`s a great oven. You could make a lot of Charcloth for me with it. lol.

Hi Patrick, how cool would it be doing a burn with snow around the Biochar Oven... You'd get some melted snow... Hey? Nice video. Still waiting for a music track bud? LoL... Love your theme music. Cheers David

Craft procedures not necessarily translate to better ambientaly products. Yours is a serious document. Congratulations. The indirect distillation of the wood ensures that the process will generate much less ashes that would increase the pH of the soil. A good biochar, without doubt, helps to increase efficiency and sustainability of agriculture. The only problem I see is that its cost is high due to the scale of the oven and the system can not be scaled easily. With the help of some engineers your model could became a wonderful input to RATIONAL AGRICULTURE.

Wow! fantastic thank you for the video! Jesus bless you!

Patrick, two questions. We loved this video and want to experiment with the idea. Got a old ridiculously heavy wood stove at the auction last week for 25 bucks but there doesn't seem to be a working damper. Do you think we could just put an inner retort chamber inside the stove and keep the door ajar and set up a chimney kind of like you did????? We have never worked with a wood stove before but the deal seemed to be there...its going to be for outside use one way or another, seems this would make a lot of sense. If you have any ideas on how to modify this please share. Question 2. The stainless steel pots...any chemical breakdown that would release dangerous fumes??? How about the pots melting down from high temps. The larger pot you are using looks like it started to melt a bit..or is that just denting from the drilling process. Thanks for your great videos. We look foward to them coming. Cool light setup too. But you definitely need to hit the thrift shops for lamp cords(with lamp attached) that are like a dollar :) Thanks, Paul and Suzanne

Concrete can explode when heated (trapped moisture flashes to steam), best to do it on another spot.

The wood ash left over from the burn is also good for the garden, don't throw it away..

OneYardRevolution What a great tutorial! you are much kinder then my neighbours who enjoy burning pressure treated lumber in their fire pit. barring the ability to make your own Biochar where would one find that type of product?

what a good video, and You are very good at explaining things! That escapes me, I wish I could do that. I really am interested in trying this but have no time to make it yet. Has Anybody tried it in a Aquaponics system? Thanks for the great video!

OneYardRevolution Great video Patrick! One question, maybe I missed it but how do you know when you have burned it long enough for all of the gasses to escape the inner chamber and you actually have bio char left? Awesome idea on the scaled down version... :-)

Very informative. Have you checked the temp of the gases coming out of the chimney? I wonder if there is enough heat to distill salt water.

Thats good stuff but my wife going to be mad as can be when I borrow her jam pans ;-) )I will say you made me do it. Dave

Just watched your video. Very interesting. I have done a lot of reading on making biochar. I have read that adding to much biochar can raise the ph, Can you tell me how much would be too much? Also I have read where earth worms will not stay around where there is biochar.

hi, the video is 4 years old and im wondering if your biochar oven is still working and if you have made any modifications since? i am about to make one based on this one since the size and level of production fits my needs. Thanks for the videos, very inspiring.

What can be done with the ash that was produced? How does it affect soil pH?

Great effort - nice product. Here's a link to part one of a very instructional series from Living Web Farms. This is a 5 part workshop that takes a lot of time to watch, but really worth while, at least for this novice. Biochar Workshop Part 1, How to Make Biochar Ideally, I don't think you need the little holes in the top of the inner retort chamber. The idea is to force the gases down and out around the bottom lip. Based on what I saw, I don't think you packed the cavity between the two chambers with chips (smart that you dried them first). Have a look at how tightly the guys in the video jamb the small cavity. My first successful efforts to create this black gold have been to build a roaring hot fire in my shop wood stove, then as soon as it is down to a bed of large coals, I scoop them out into a steel pail and cover them with sand to quench the fire. That is one hot pail of coals. Don't get a lot at a time, but so far I have about a bushel, and my shop is heated in the process.

Help. We're doing this research about biochar and we're planning to mix it in a compost. How much biochar is needed for a compost? And what else could be the components of biochar aside from fruit peelings and woodpile? thanks!

Hey Patrick, keep revisiting this video. We are trying to make biochar for emergency fuel purposes and are trying not to buy our way through lowes to get there. So, we have a weber coal starter that looks something like your chimney, do you think it would be possible to hook that into a system like yours. Have the pots, just the flue is the hold back. Thanks for any help.

Cool

Can you cook directly on top of the chimney?

what is the difference between charcoal and biochar?...can any one mention pls..

An excellent video on the process of pyrolysis, and how to construct a low-tech, low-cost retort chamber. I can see some high school science teachers using your video in the classroom. I did just a small bit of research on terra preta soils and understand why many folks may want to add biochar to their gardens. But(if you don't mind me asking a philosophical question, Patrick) I'm wondering if you think it might be better(ecologically) to just spread the wood chips in the garden? Creating biochar releases hydrogen and methane into the atmosphere, which may affect global warming. Wouldn't it be easier and safer to just mulch? Was wondering what your opinion might be but understand if you'd prefer not to have these discussions on your channel. No harm, no foul.

Mix it with some pee and add it to your garden. Been used to feed and improve garden beds for centuries, even millennia. They can find evidence of its use in South American rain forests so far back. You can use this activated biochar exclusively in your garden with adding next to nothing else and get amazing results.

I was hoping the comments would include people saying - this is unnecessary, just use ordinary burned wood - but nobody did. :(

what is the camera your shooting with

Nice oven. I've been looking for a while but in my location everything usable is plastic. My wife isn't going to be very happy with me if I start drilling holes in her pots and pans.

Could you .are a slightly bigger version and sell it to me?

Do you think your biochar project is worthwhile?? I saw Mr. Stephen's experiment on its ineffectiveness in crop yield in the already compost enriched beds. So me and the "Work with nature" guy was having an argument on the same. Hence I'd like to know if you still makes them or just stick with your ritual of "mulch & compost" ;)

Could the upper chamber heat be used to piggyback a separate waste plastic pyrolysis to produce pyrolysis fuel from plastics? It's a shame to waste all that heat to just escape and produce 1 pound of bio char or charcoal fuel where I'm from... charcoal fuel (briquette) sells for $3 per 3.3 pounds online.. That way you will have two products from the original machine; 1 pound of biochar and at least one liter or more of fuel from the waste plastic pyrolysis... and you get rid of some plastic waste.. this could even be a business...

My 50/30 gal drum system doesn't make as much smoke than my Webber grill does and I've not had any problems with neighbors. The set up isn't visible to neighbors and I grill outside all times of the year, so no one is any wiser.

why do not you use wood gas as fuel

cost of running dehumidifier > value of biochar

I know that the bio char is important, it just seems like you waste a huge amount of wood in the process. You could have cooked, heated, even forged metal on the amount of energy it took and in the end you would have even more bio char by using the fuel you used to cook the original batch of wood. I just do not get this process.

Oops...I meant inable

Well you,ve made charcoal. It's not biochar until it's been added to soil.

The secret of the amazon biochar was they threw massive amounts of dead cockroaches into the oven. Just kidding.

It's charcoal, not biochar. Add that to your garden and things will go backwards for your garden at first.

ditch this thing for a Rocket mass heater