Cristobal Cristo

Thom,

4x4 (100x100 mm) is tiny, much smaller than already small and finicky 4" batchbox firebox (144x215 mm).
If you enlarge the firebox to 8x8x8 and the vertical riser to 3x8 it will draw beautifully. It's much easier to experiment with ordinary red bricks. The stove can be reconfigured while the fire is burning to observe how it affect the combustion.

Regarding using the stoneware clay for riser. How thin can you extrude it to keep it stable? If it's not going to be less than half firebrick (32 mm) then it's rather not worth - you will create continuous structure without expansion joints and it will crack. Of course it doesn't preclude its further use as the riser lining, but eventually the cracks will cause pieces to crumble off. Thin dense firebricks laid on stretcher with a wrap (or IFBs on the outside) will work better and much longer.

For using insulating firebricks in the wood fire flame path I recommend reading this short thread:
https://permies.com/t/389334/rebuild-replacing-IFB

On the other hand, if you don't care about decades of trouble free performance and like to rebuild things then there is a wide array of materials to experiment with.

I wish I did, but my climate does not support the growth of mushrooms known by Western civilization. I have downloaded images (few thousand) of all mushrooms known in California and I was still finding species that I could not identify  The  only edible mushroom I found was Collybia sordida (purple), but I still was not 100% sure so I did not want to risk - one specimen would not feed me but could hurt. If I found tens I would feel more pressed to identify with safe certainity.
Most popular edible mushrooms grow when it's warm and wet - combination that does not exist in my place, bacause warm means arid and wet means cool with night freezes.

My wooden forms bowed badly when I used them as forms for clay/perlite bricks. The mix was relatively dry and I was packing and tamping it into the forms. Aircrete mixture is runny - with a lot of water.
You would need to run a test to quickly find out if the blocks come out square and without excessive cardboard sticking problem.

If you added 15 courses of bricks, made a door opening and chimney inlet at a bottom, in theory you could fit a 5" batch box in a tall and slim bell.

Carrie,

From older animal, all meat has to be stewed for few hours and it does not matter much which cut.
This is how I eat my 3 year old ram:
-long stewing
-bone broth to make various rice and pasta dishes and soups
-ground meat can be used for ćevapi, burgers, pasta sauces; grind first through large openings and then switch the plate to small openings for a second grind
-also any meat cut will make delicious steak tartare (onion, pickles, egg yolk, mustard, olive oil, pepper and salt)
-organs for various dedicated dishes or cooked with meaty bones to make pate

I'm about to try making sausages: chorizo and juniper flavored

In this case it may be sufficient. Is it a grid on both sides of the slab - upper and lower, what spacing? Dedicated slab will give you additional support that will distribute the weight or the slab.
If you have a choice II would suggest to have it close to the bathroom/living room area as sleeping in colder air is great, but bathing not so much - at least for me.

Mike,

A dedicated slab is a good choice as mobile home slabs will be usually minimally thin and insufficiently reinforced (if at all).
How do you want to radiate heat through 4" space?
Centrally located RMH should heat the key areas in a light mobile home. If you shared the plan we could help with heater placement.

I already commented on this issue stating that there exist quality differences between various IFBs, but now I'm thinking that they should not be used in the wood flame path.
Two vendors/manufactures that I inquired about IFB use in flame path said it was OK, but at the same time it's rather obvious that they are not intended for wood flame path:

1. IFBs are rather new invention, established in industry in the 50s.

2. Industry uses natural gas, propane or electricity to melt, crack, kiln fire.

3. If wood is burnt in biomass power stations or incinerators - high alumina hard bricks are used (I read some paper), because amount of fluxes and detrimental substances is high.

My electric ceramic kiln is lined with IFB-26, but it's electric and only I converted it to propane and propane exhaust is super clean compared to wood and I use it maybe 10 times per year only, so I may not be able to notice any deterioration.
I just read that IFB/propane kilns may have longevity of 1-5 years in high use environment. High use for ceramics firing would be once per 3 days, because cooling to less than 50 C (safe for glazes) takes me around 40 hours. For quick raku firing (objects are removed hot from the kiln) firings could be more frequent with much more thermal stress.
Masonry heater will be probably fired for let's say 4 months, so with one fire par day it's 120 firings - equivalent to once per 3 days kiln use schedule. However the fuel is wood with chlorine (bricks don't like it) and various fluxes. Also the temperature in properly built riser is equal and turbulence much higher than in a kiln.

So it looks like IFBs in wood flame path are really being tested by us. I'm really curious about performance of IFB risers built by others.

I have checked some estimates to determine the percentages of land areas that would definitely not support vegetation (without great effort):
Tundra: 9%
Alpine climates: 3%
Deserts with less than 100 mm precipitation: 10%
Ice capped land: 10%
So it's 32% of land where growing anything would be pure misery - if possible at all: maybe some cactus on the desert, some berries in tundra and Alpine climates, but it would not feed anybody in significant numbers.
There are more land types (than those listed) where attempting to grow would be probably waste of time or resources. It would be deserts with precipitation between 100-200 mm (another 9%) and it's too low to support anything meaningful without irrigation, harsh cold steppe climates with very short growing seasons, etc. There are also tropical forests that we want to protect due to biodiversity - another 12%.