Making Biochar with Jolly Roger Ovens

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12 жыл бұрын

A 30 gallon retort heated by a 55 gallon TLUD is the basic idea. I've been a biochar enthusiast for 5 years now and riding the learning curve on how to make and use biochar at home. This device can run very cleanly. The cleanest I have seen for a simple batch device.
Playing with large, red hot, drums is a safety concern. So be thoughtful and careful if you try it. I am looking forward to making improvements to the design and looking forward to seeing anyone elses. This is an open architecture. If you come up with improvements, please share them.
Obviously harvesting the heat for some useful purpose would be a good place to start.
This was my first attempt at putting together a youtube movie and the first time I played with iMovie. It won't be my last. This year, 2012, I hope to share what I am doing with the biochar I have been making.

Пікірлер: 63

@Estabanwatersaz 10 жыл бұрын

Love your attention to detail and step by step. Thank you!

@kipfbruno7313 Жыл бұрын

Well, quite the first guy that explained everything really good and understandable. Up until now I was able to transform wood chips into biochar with a lot more material (having some isolation surrounding the retort). But using some isolation will bring up the problem having more than 800°C and this will damage the barrel quite soon. But having a TLUD underneath the retorte ... that's a real nice idea.

@josebenitez3732 10 жыл бұрын

Thanks Douglas you've given me all kinds of ideas.

@truthdefender54 11 жыл бұрын

Nice setup Doug. Simplicity can be awesome at times. Thanks for the video!

@GNBrews 12 жыл бұрын

A firend who is using this technique on a slightly smaller scale uses a strip of masking tape down the side and around the very bottom edge of the TLUD container to judge when the TLUD has finished. The masking tape chars as the burn progesses, and when the bottom ring of tape is fully charred, your TLUD process is very close to being complete. That little tip takes a lot of the guesswork out of knowing when it's finished.

@douglasnclayton 12 жыл бұрын

I am intending my use of biochar to be the subject of a future youtube. Today I was turning compost piles and adding more char in that process. I've been incorporating biochar, often soaked in urine or layered directly with cow manure in the beginning and adding more urine saturated char with turnings. Like you I chop it up wet and make no dust. Plastic or steel barrels and a shovel work fine. Made from wood chips, small twigs 'n such doesn't need much chopping. Hammermill last turning.

@berniekoltes2862 6 жыл бұрын

GREAT JOB OF EXPLAINING==KEEPING IT SIMPLE==THANKS

@apples13able 12 жыл бұрын

Really cool and thanx for posting! I'm micro scale with my 1 gallon paint can TLUD midge stove (Bush bean can combustion chamber w vortex angle slits inside a Dole Pinapple can inside a 1 gallon paint can powered w 2 watt 3" computer fan controlled with 5 watt 300 ohm potentiometer), I throw out remaining char on the garden or lawn right now, might try to make a small retort to throw on top now that I watched your vid. I have one 55 gallon drum at the moment... char is fun! Garden potential!

@smppro 12 жыл бұрын

great video, thanks for sharing

@guillermosaint 10 жыл бұрын

This is awesome...

@rubbernecker13 12 жыл бұрын

Also, a pot skirt can greatly improve the efficiency of trying to apply heat to anything. Right now, your tlud is only heating the bottom of your retort. Make a sheet metal pot skirt chimney combo and all sides will be heated. Look at the pot skirts on high efficiency rocket stoves. I imagine moist wood would be less of a problem in the retort. Might even be possible to burn a little bit of trash or what have you to run the retort when you're out of chips. I'd like to try cow pies in a retort.

@MrFennmeista 9 жыл бұрын

This is great.

@yosef3921 11 жыл бұрын

thank you

@douglasnclayton 12 жыл бұрын

Pile the brush (in an organized manner)on a rope or cable and let it dry for a few weeks, then cinch it up tight and chop it up with a chainsaw. This will make good stock for the retort and maybe the TLUD too. Maybe wood chips will dry where you are, that's difficult in New Hampshire. Maybe you could run 3 or 4 at a time, starting a new one every 20 minutes? Sounds like work to me. I am planning further experiments and improvements this year. Stay tuned.

@rubbernecker13 12 жыл бұрын

Outflippinstanding! I ran a 65 gallon tlud all night last night and wished I could run the truck or heat the house with all that energy shooting toward the stars. A retort crossed my mind but not the details, good job. I don't have a blower so I sift sort my chips on an old bedframe covered in hardware cloth leaned on a timber a frame and dry on the driveway. The 1/4 to 1/2 inch chips just want to smolder, even with a 55 gallon chimney. Pine cones are cake in a tlud.

@douglasnclayton 12 жыл бұрын

rubbernecker, thanks for your compliments. You seem to have missed an important detail. There is a 30 gallon retort inside that 55 and all sides are being heated. How do you get a TLUD to run all night? Mine is done in 75 minutes

@radikewl70 12 жыл бұрын

Just a thought for possibly capturing heat, not sure if or how well it would work, maybe run some water pipe over the top of the chimney to heat water. Great vid, thanks for posting.

@ecmeitei1749 3 жыл бұрын

Good demonstration Sir. Can TLUD char be used to make charcoal briquettes for burning or is it a very low quality charcoal which won't be suitable for making charcoal briquettes?? Light me please

@Asylumescapee69 12 жыл бұрын

Also, you could create a choke valve situation to squelch the combustion instead of washing out useful mineral content left in the char. You'd have to redesign the 'gap', have tighter joints, and lids for the top. The bottom could be on a slide rack to move off the air intake to a sealing method...

@ecmeitei1749 3 жыл бұрын

Somebody please enlighten me. Can the charcoal produce from TLUD chamber be used for making charcoal briquettes for BBQ purpose?

@waltlars3687 11 жыл бұрын

Once you produce the biochar how do use it for growing veggies ?

@Gardensnog 12 жыл бұрын

Douglas, Great system.! I,ve been making some in a 55g drum tlud but very simple. How do you grind the Char before adding to compost or soil.? I made a hole in to of 5 gal pail. thn use a rod with old lawnmower blade attached and power it at slow speed with powerful drill. I always soak in tea with seaweed, and other nice goodies first. The wet Char grinds down finely without any dust.

@elmonike 11 жыл бұрын

This is something we are starting in my school for my aquaponcs class all wee need is the metal containers any help ?

@jcf005 12 жыл бұрын

I've been clearing brush to plant fruit trees and this is the perfect way to get rid of the wood and scraps and benefit my soil. This burns cleaner than the other designs too! I can chip the small stuff for the TLUD and use the retort to process the larger chunks. In the end I'll have biochar to add to my soil and clear underbrush to plant crazy amounts of food! How many of these things do you think someone could safely operate at once? Your burn time before putting it out was 75 minites? Avg?

@atanacioluna292 8 жыл бұрын

Thanks; this is so instructive about the process and the theory. It is enjoyable to watch and highly appreciated. Is the TLUD, the lower barrel biochar as resilient as from the upper barrel process?

@douglasnclayton 8 жыл бұрын

did you get my reply?

@douglasnclayton 8 жыл бұрын

Antonio, please watch the follow-up Making Biochar with jolly roger ovens REVISITED. TLUD burs some char to ash so there is a higher ash content but both retort and TLUD chars are high temp, high adsorbing chars

@nikhilsukumar23 7 жыл бұрын

Doug's Intuitive Biochar How is the good frirnd in this video? Not heard from him lately.:)

@snookmeister55 11 жыл бұрын

very slick. I'm made a lot of charcoal but never quite like this.

@antonhelsgaun 8 жыл бұрын

I dont get it, you heat the water so hot that it doesnt turn into steam? what do you heat it up to plazma or what?

@koontzman123 11 жыл бұрын

The chimney is to create up draft, right? What if instead you used a blower to suck out off-gases, then send that back to the bottom barrel for a more complete burn? Is there some tar in that smoke that could break down a little more?

@DennisKenneybees 7 ай бұрын

I have looked for 30 gal drums and can't find them.

@rlmrdl 11 жыл бұрын

Great ideas here, many thanks. My big problem is that in NZ its very difficult to get a 30 gallon drum. At my next burn I'm planning to add extra feedstock to the tlud barrel as well as it burns down. I'm guessing that the char will act as an insulator and prevent new material from cooling the flame front but will add new char as the contents of the TLUD sink. If I stop feeding new material about 30 minutes beofre it runs out we should be good to get it charred.

@martykraft1461 7 жыл бұрын

How long does the process take? I'm trying to make char for my neighborhood, have a chipper and have made a chip dryer. Kind of like a large fruit dryer. Have you tried to dry chips?

@Cynical1800 2 жыл бұрын

Does the retort drip biofuel since holes are drilled in the bottom? Are they consumed by the flame?

@douglasnclayton 2 жыл бұрын

Not "drip" more like a jet of wood gas which is comprised of several volatiles. Composition of Wood Gas 51% Nitrogen (N2) 22% Carbon Monoxide (CO) 18% Hydrogen (H2) 6% Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 3% Methane (CH4)

@Cynical1800 2 жыл бұрын

@@douglasnclayton Can you distill it into a liquid to turn into biodiesel?

@douglasnclayton 2 жыл бұрын

@@Cynical1800 Not with this device and none that has ever been economically viable.

@rubbernecker13 12 жыл бұрын

@douglasnclayton Oh, hey! Sorry, I must have missed the inner 30 gallon drum, I'm just watching it again without my girlfriend yapping. My tlud may be a bit slower operating on updraft only, but I try to run batches back to back when I'm home before rain soaks my wood chips again. Sometimes the finer wood chips just smolder to the bottom, bellowing smoke and dripping condensates for a few hours, definitely not ideal. I think you've got the best setup I've seen yet. Many thanks for sharing it.

@charmorff 11 жыл бұрын

Good setup. Just those glitches that need Addressing:-)

@TimeSurfer206 2 жыл бұрын

Make the notches on the bottom perpendicular to the Radial ones you have now? But, for anything more permanent, you should probably replace the bottom with Boilerplate, and put in a proper grate. Also, from one Old man to another: Do yourself a favor, and get a 12' long 4X4 and make a crane to lift those barrels!!!

@birdsnest69 10 жыл бұрын

so what's the difference between bio char and charcoal?

@suzijones4234 10 жыл бұрын

Charcoal as you find in briquets has been combined with sawdust and other chemicals to improve ignition. Sometimes you will see "lump charcoal" in the BBQ section at your local Walmart; while it's in chunks and looks much like the finished product of biochar this may or may not be treated with anything to improve ignitablity. True biochar, on the other hand, has not been treated with any chemical agents and is safe to crush and put into soil for the intended purpose of improving the soil web and acting as a carbon sink.

@Godshole 9 жыл бұрын

paul crabtree In addition to Suzis comment, true bio char, once cooked, is soaked with an organic food, like compost tea/water, diluted urine or worm compost juice for example to fill all the micro pores with nutrient and start the micro biological processes that make it so beneficial as a soil conditioner. Then it is mixed with your normal composting process and given time to activate. It also needs to be crushed to sawdust size and I am sick of the multitude of tree huggers that make simple charcoal and then pat themselves on the back because they have saved the planet. From what I have read putting straight lumps of charcoal into the soil actually does sod all, even makes it worse, untill the activation of the raw charcoal pores takes place, 6 to 12 months later. The better ways of transforming charcoal into bio char I have seen are to at least crush it and mix it in with your compost pile. So by the time it gets to your garden it has had chance to 'activate' and get filled up with all the nutrients, fungi and micro organisms that your soil and plants need. P.s. I like this double burn method.

@douglasnclayton 10 жыл бұрын

I soak the char in urine, chop a little with a shovel, black liquid results. Worms love it. As a final compost turning I run it all through a hammer mill. No dust. Opps, I see I already resonded . . .

@douglasnclayton 10 жыл бұрын

With regards to the oxygen, you've not understood the basics of TLUD design/operation. Study up on TLUDS. The video explains why the fan. The wood was not treated.

@Asylumescapee69 12 жыл бұрын

Thanks for sharing! Listen, that chimney is pumping combustible gas (carbon) which you could be utilizing for other purpose... I read that they can make diamonds with carbon gas and high pressure, but just the same, you can light a fire to it and set another stove on top of that! You could pipe it into an engine/generator, or even potentially compress it and store it for use as fuel. If you react it with hydrogen you could learn to make your own gasoline with the waste of this stove.

@douglasnclayton 3 жыл бұрын

No, not appropriate for that as it makes high temp, high adsorbing char with all the volatiles driven off so not good for fuel. Great for the compost pile.

@boddahmeep8752 10 жыл бұрын

i am unsure why you are putting fans on it, isn't the idea that charcoal is made by burning in a LOW oxygen environment? Is it simply to do it faster? if so is there a cost of material? is it to make it burn at all? Also if thats pallet wood, is it treated? if so I doubt that should be used in the garden.

@sun9912 2 жыл бұрын

I'm confused

@solartonytony5868 9 жыл бұрын

credits to the guitar player plz .....!

@douglasnclayton 8 жыл бұрын

Carlos Saura credited at the end, also in the REVISITED follow-up video

@TheBendablespoons 3 жыл бұрын

You still kicking?

@douglasnclayton 3 жыл бұрын

yes

@johntomlinson1154 Жыл бұрын

@douglasnclayton Glad to hear you're still there. Just ran across your channel and it's the best explanation I've seen. Hope you make some more vids in the future.