Biochar - Processing Firewood into Feedstock
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- Опубликовано: 20 окт 2024
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• Biochar - Making it in... - Much more in-depth discussion on how we make charcoal in our wood stove, while heating our home.
Hotel Pans - If you search online for 'hotel pans' you'll see what we mean. Any local restaurant supply store would have them, or local stores that sell kitchen goods. Stainless steel and small enough to fit in a woodstove with good room around them for firewood, adjustments, etc, and a lid are all necessary. Ours have each lasted for many hundreds of burns.
I like making charcoal out of various feedstocks in our woodstove. Nutshells, bones, sawdust, shop offcuts, etc, all make amazing charcoal. But since I ran out of those already I'm dipping into our dense hardwood firewood stash to convert some of that into charcoal while heating our home. No heat lost here, just carbon sequestering! Worth the extra work for me on a cold winter evening for sure.
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“In fact, don’t do anything I ever say. Be safe.” My whole family, children included, just literally BELLY LAUGHED when you said that! We just love you so!!!
Same, here! 🤣👍
I realize we forget to tell people to not try anything at home so consider this a blanket statement for all the things. It's what our lawyer told us to say :) ha!
I paused your video to put another pan of bio-char feedstock into my wood stove.
I have been cutting up and using some firewood for feedstock also. I burned through all of my summer saved feedstock already. I store mine in large-ish plastic tubs in the barn. I've gone through 3 big tubs already. That was woodshop off cuts, chestnut burs, black walnut floaters, hickory nut shells, peanut shells, chicken bones, wine corks, pine cones, wood chips, etc.
I have a small collection of interesting pieces of charcoal that have been through the process.
If you want to make and sell artist charcoal, peel some pencil sized willow sticks, run a pan of them through your wood stove, and box them up pretty-like and sell for premium $$$. Each pan of willow charcoal will yield you big money from your artist friends. Or just gift them your surplus, or use for trade. Peace and happy solstice!
We're char brothers it seems :) Once you start getting deep into it, you can find SO many raw ingredients that can become pure charcoal.
I think I'm going to reach out to local cabinet shops and wood working spots to collect truckloads of hardwood sawdust and offcuts and see if we can't get our firewood use to below 2 cord a season. I'd like to take a few days where we actually weight how much charcoal is made per day to get a sense of what the real carbon sequestering potential of this is.
Maybe you want to weigh a day? We should do a 'charlenge' and see who can crank out the most carbon in a day :)
@@edibleacres Challenge there is I have a small straw bale home, and only burn the wood stove for a few hours a day. I know you would easily push past me on the output of charcoal.
I do however make charcoal with tree trimmings and such in the new year, Feb/Mar timeframe. A few pit burns and I might catch up to you.
The trick would be if we could get most folks doing this, think of how much carbon would be held in the soils for the next 1000 years. :) And if more and more do this around the world, well, then it could be a revolution.
That is a really brilliant process Sean! If all wood burning stoves were run in this manor imagine how little soot and carbon particulate would be discharged out into the atmosphere... The benefits of your system are immense. Fantastic job!!
You are so inspiring. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. You and Sasha have such beautiful hearts. And make the world a better place. Grace and peace.
Merry Christmas EdibleAcres and viewers
Thanks kindly, happy holidays to you and yours
Thank you Sean, shared with my cousins who have wood burners and gardens.
Getting the bones past the dog however.....
You all have a lovely Yule and I hope Stanley hasn't gotten near any decorations
An alternative to a chop saw for processing the wood is a portable band saw with a reasonably coarse blade. (14 teeth/inch seems to work well)
You have to clamp the wood somehow,if you're working by yourself. I use either a tripod mounted pipe vise or one of the "Jawhorse" type clamps,whichever I'm closest to,or whichever isn't being used for other stuff.
Fastest way to cut firewood I've found,within the size limitations of the saw-usually 4" diameter. Also quiet. Takes a little practice to get the hang of it,but not much.
Good suggestion here.
Very cool, I'm definitely going to do this.
Please be safe and enjoy! It feels amazing to be toasty warm and know we're locking carbon down for the long haul while it's going on :)
How do you implement the biochar into your system? Could i work it into my chicken system so they can mix/inoculate it? Sorry if I've missed you covering this already.
I touch on it randomly through many videos, but basic idea is yes, chicken system is perfect for it. I crush it informally by stepping on a bag of it: ruclips.net/video/p0a_9INKqsw/видео.html Then we add it to the early stages of the chicken composting system so it can absorb the most goodnesses.
It's oddly satisfying to see the volatile gasses from the feed stock burn off as they escape around the edges of the pan lid. When you no longer see those flames then you know your feed stock is fairly well carbonized. I've carbonized pine cones, acorns, and hulls from hickory nuts.
I love watching that part!
i always put the remains of a fire onto the compost pile, although theres ofcourse a lot of ash mixed in.
i have a question but its kinda offtopic: how much can you actually feed yourself with your garden over the year? could you easily live without buying any groceries(except winter)?
Even the ash is great for composting it's mineral rich and great for the garden.
Ash can work nicely too, just something to be careful with how concentrated it is.
The question of feeding ourselves is complex because we forage for a lot of food (nuts, meat, greens, etc that we don't grow in the garden), we barter with folks for a lot of our food, etc. Our garden adds a lot of value to our meals but isn't the bulk of our diet. Our overall lifestyle facilitates pretty much all of our food without money, but we still buy key ingredients like salt, butter, oils, etc. for now.
@@edibleacres thanks for the reply! looks like youre gonna be one of the few to survive an apocalypse
I have been doing this. Works great. Effortless charcoal. And it accumulates, fast. Chop saw: I use a stick with a fork in the end, the whole thing about a foot long, to push the work piece into the fence. This stabilizes round pieces, or short pieces while chopping. The work piece is much more solid that way, and should anything bad happen during the cut (not likely), your body is not close to anything sharp.
Great suggestion, thank you for this.
Just had a thought, If you have 3 pans, could you have one in the stove and two sitting on top dehydrating and ready to go for your next batch? On days where you are not cooking via the stove top.
Also, you mentioned you also biochar clothing. Should it be cotton only? or Do you think its safe to char all kinds of fabrics? In this case, you can also contact second hand clothing shops for stuff they cannot sell and will end up tossing in the landfill for biochar material. You may be able to get loads of stuff from them.
3rd: You can call up some carpenters on Craigslist or Kijiji and ask for lumber they are taking to the garbage. My buddy probably loads up bins of stuff when he demolishes a room.
I wouldn't seek out random clothing to make char from, we just did it because they were too old to wear or donate... The carpenter idea is nice, dense sawdust and dry offcuts could be amazing!
A pan could sit on top to preheat, but put on a riser/spacer would probably be safest.
Bravo !
We watched you older video showing using a roasting pan and so that is what we bought. Do you still recommend them as being a good container to use. I am sure the stainless would last longer but since we are just starting out trying to make bio char in our wood stove am wanting to make sure this is ok. Thanks so much!
Work with what you've got... That said, we've upgraded to the 'hotel pans' or 'half size hotel pans' that are roughly 6x9x13" I believe. Incredibly long lasting, and a good investment when you are ready.
@@edibleacres Thanks so much! We just did 3 batches of bio char last night and it turned out great in the roaster pan we had! Your videos were the best I have seen on showing how to make it and the only ones I saw about making in wood stove. I love this idea as it serves so many multi purposes instead of just burning wood!
So the box doesn't have to be very tight fitting? No holes or anything?
These hotel pans have lids that fit on them in such a way as to easily let gases out that want to but pretty effectively restrict gases coming in. It isn't tight tight or cinched down, but a good enough seal to work incredibly well for this application.
GREAT INFO! Thanks
why @1:25 do you say sticks pyrolysis would produce more heat than sticks burning completely to the ash? Can not charcoal produced still be used as fuel for bbqs, woodstoves, etc - so it still has much of energy left in it?
Good question... You're right when describing firewood cut down and turned into charcoal that we get some heat, but not all since there is charcoal left... What I was meaning to convey is that when we're able to make charcoal from nutshells, dried sawdust, etc that we get extra heat because we'd never heat with them otherwise. In the retort they release a ton of gases that burn cleanly and heat our home nicely while making charcoal as a by product.
But in this context with the firewood your question makes perfect sense...
Can I use undried wood or should I just wait until next year when I have excess dry wood?
You can use unseasoned wood. I would encourage you to break it down to the size you want to work with and store some near your stove for a few days so it can dry down a bunch before you char it.
What happens to the process if there is a small bit of moisture in the center of a small log (if it is not split) during the gassing off stage? Does the steam interfere or cause a different result in the char? Do you scrub your bones before introducing them into the process?
It just takes a bit longer for the sap/moisture to boil off. Adding too much wet/green wood to a fire can really dampen down the fire a lot, but once it heats up and the moisture boils off it will start to burn just Luke dry wood.
In short - wet/green wood takes more heat to dry before it starts burning
You don't have to clean the bones first. I let mine sit out and air dry first. Then in they go. If there is a bit of meat left on the bones it just gets turned into char too.
If you have any concerns that the wood is not seasoned, cut it shorter and/or split it more. Ideal scenario is super dry material that is finely split. BUT reality steps in and says almost everything works just fine. Certainly no need at all to scrub bones. We will store a pile of them out of the rain, with air flow over them, for a summer and by fall they are ready for charring with no fuss.
I was giving the whole, where can you get feed material to biochar some more thought.
1st idea: You can probably get more material to turn into biochar from a bakery. Imagine getting lots of old bread from a supermarket, bakery or restaurant. It would be easy to turn into biochar and then it would be soooo easy to crush into fine particles afterwards. It would probably be good biochar for seed starter soil.
2nd idea: If a restaurant, hotel or resort is already collecting vegetable scraps for composting, they may be willing to collect bones for you to turn into biochar.
Many different sources you can work with for sure. I would probably skip the old bread to make char because it is a very low density carbon source. If I could get a ton of old bread I'd let it be around the landscape so wild creatures could eat whatever they wanted and deposit their fertility there!
The bones from a restaurant is a nice idea, maybe a butcher shop too?
So many waste streams to tap into!
Dude, you’re up early this morning! Haha. I looked for some of those steam table trays and they were $75 with out the lid each! Dang!
I got ours from a local restaurant supply place. About $25 for the container, $6 for the lid for each... You may want to look up a restaurant supply place near you, or search ebay for them used?
www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fsrp=1&_nkw=hotel+pans&_sacat=0&_from=R40&rt=nc&LH_ItemCondition=4
At $30 per retort it seems expensive, but they are showing no signs of wear after 3+ years and HUNDREDS of burns each. I think they could be a multigenerational investment.
EdibleAcres yeah, $30 isn’t too bad but up here new ones are about $100 with a lid - everything is more expensive in Canada! I’ve checked online too, I’ll keep looking, I want to try this method out. I’m guessing it reduces your firewood usage.
Look for used, also look at scrap yards.
I have also seen a length of stovepipe with caps on both ends.
Ronyon yeah, I’ve been looking, no luck so far.
How important is it to top it with sawdust/wood chips?
Not important at all.
Sean likes to fill the box. If he has sawdust, he uses it. If he doesn't have it on hand then he fills with whatever he has. If it was alive once, and fits in the pan... In it goes.
What are the benefits of bio char vs ash. I have done some reading on the subject. Is it also activated charcoal.
Charcoal, once inoculated with rich organic matter, can provide positive benefit to soils for hundreds if not thousands of years. Ash can contribute minerals and a pH shifting effect, which is nice, but is not long lasting and can be bad for soils in any sort of concentrations.
@@edibleacres A better use for wood ash? A very thin sprinkling on ice renders ice as safe as dry concrete for traction.
@@edibleacres Thanks.
Does the retort ever retort?
Cute :)
Thats a very nice tape measure! :>)>
I like it. I like these that stay open by default.
I cut my branches on a band saw which allows mr to keep 2 hands on it. 14 inch band saw + uniform length.
That makes a lot of sense.
Do you watch the "Skillcult" channel? He does biochar videos also and lots of other cool stuff!!! He is a groovy dude!!! :>)>
Great channel, I'm glad you mentioned him for other folks to check out.