Comments on: Biochar kiln progress

By: new_biochar_land

new_biochar_land — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 19:25:14 +0000

You must read this
“The Biochar Revolution” with “The Biochar Solution”
http://biochar-books.com/
The Biochar Revolution collects the results and best practical advice that these entrepreneurs have to offer to the biochar community. When practice and theory advance to the point where they meet in the middle, then we will truly see a biochar revolution.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 08:37:51 +0000

Thanks for making this info. available. I also have a lot where I’m living on the Big Island and this inspires me to want to try it. I remember seeing charcoal pits before, now I regret not have studied harder how they were doing it, if I recall it took about 3-5 days to do it in a 10′x20′ pit.

By: ben

ben — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 04:03:25 +0000

Melissa, I don’t recommend the double metal barrel approach. 1. It requires finding or manufacturing barrels of different sizes, 2. It limits you to output size of the smaller barrel and 3. you want the outer layer to insulate, to hold in heat, and a metal barrel is very poor for that. I recommend instead an approach like you see here in my blog, with a single barrel (or other metal chamber open at the bottom), surrounded by any kind of insulated chamber you can build – earthen, concrete blocks, bricks, it does not matter, anything is better than a thin metal barrel. Consult my notes at http://ahualoa.net/ag/notes_biochar.html and feel free to give a phone call (for contact info click ‘Directions’ in the right.)

By: Melissa Green

Melissa Green — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:29:38 +0000

Hi Ben! I’m looking for some design schematics for a double barrel oven design for a community demonstration project in Hampton VA. Have you run across anything besides some pictures and instruction like “Put some holes in the bottom”? This is a bunch of engineers so winging it means everyone will write and run complicated thermodynamic modeling program so we can argue about it in a meeting. I’m really trying to avoid that whole thing.

Thanks!

Melissa

By: ben

ben — Mon, 31 May 2010 20:46:01 +0000

For a lot more information, see the excellent Gardening with Biochar FAQ!

By: Julie

Julie — Mon, 31 May 2010 16:35:32 +0000

Thanks deb and ben!

By: ben

ben — Mon, 31 May 2010 10:08:50 +0000

Yes Julie, there are advantages to “pre-charging” the char with nutrients. Plain char will have long-term benefits of retaining nutrients and boosting microbes, but if you want immediate results, charged char is better. Popular methods are:
1. Mixing the char into warm, live compost and letting it sit. Char will absorb nutrients.
2. Soaking the char in a nutrient solution, for example fish emulsion fertilizer, or urine. Urine actually has astonishing levels of N-P-K, if the yuck factor doesn’t bother you, it’s an excellent free source.
You could pour water into a bucket of that fresh horse manure i see on your blog, and use that aqueous solution to charge char.

By: deb

deb — Mon, 31 May 2010 10:01:11 +0000

Hi Julie:. Yes, you can buy "all natural lump hardwood charcoal" Cowboy Charcoal. The trick is to wet it down with nutrient solution and smash it to tiny, tiny bits (use mask!) by hand with rubber mallet or use chipper/shredder.

By: Julie

Julie — Sun, 30 May 2010 17:58:49 +0000

So the charcoal has to be soaked in a nutrient solution still? What kind of solution? Should i just stay tuned ; )

Could purchased charcoal be used the same way?