J Paul

Congrats on your pit full of char! I know it's a good feeling. I too have successfully made a lot of biochar using an earth pit kiln. It seems to me to be the lowest barrier to entry for making biochar on a homestead. I hear metal drums burn out after 10-20 burns so unless you're having a custom kiln made out of thick gauge steel like the kon tiki, I think an earth pit is the way to go. I wrote a detailed article on how to make biochar in an earthpit: Earth Pit Biochar

I hope that helps someone thinking about trying this method but not knowing where to start. For me it was like a wild goose chase finding all the info I needed.

I know this is an old thread and this is my first post here but I just wrote up an extensive article covering this subject exclusively Here on my website. I go into detail about how I did it and also 5 options from a video:

The next five methods are from an excellent video with Josiah Hunt from the Growing Your Greens youtube channel:

1.) Mix equal parts fresh green grass clippings and biochar. Mix together thoroughly and evenly. Cover and let cure in a dark moist place until grass is mostly composted (~2 months).

2.) Equal parts biochar and worm castings. Then 5% or less of any flour, corn meal or molasses. Cover and let cure for at least 2 weeks.

3.) Toss biochar in chicken coop bedding. This helps deodorize the coop and it gets inoculated with food scraps and chicken manure. Keep adding biochar to coop until it is time to clean out. Then pile up biochar and let cure.

4.) Pee on it. Seriously. This works. You can use a 5 gallon bucket with a few holes in the bottom.

5.) 4 parts biochar, 1 part micronized rock powder, 1 part worm castings, 1/2 part flour or molasses (microbe food). Mix together thoroughly and evenly. Cover and let cure for at least 2 weeks.