Mike Daniel

Jeff,

Thank you for the input. Very interesting project with your 7th graders, I am actually speaking to a couple of 7th and 8th grade classes next week about this material. Do you have any advice on that? I have been trying to get creative with my powerpoints and teachings aids, I do not want to lose the student's interest, and I also do not want the material to be over their heads.

When I fired this kiln up the other day, it burned very clean, you could not see and smoke coming out of the chimney, but, none of the biomass inside the retort charred (I think its because I was using stainless steel, which is very heat resistant). If the material did char I was thinking that the pyrolysis gasses would just flare off in the chamber, but I eventually do want to re-route those gasses to be burned off at the start of the J-tube. The chimney you see is just connected to the 55 gallon barrel, the bottom of that barrel is completely cut out and placed over the smaller keg (pictured above). It is kind of a closed system. Ideally, the chimney has the same area as the portion of the rocket stove where wood is loaded to be burned. As heat rises through the chimney it creates a... siphon I guess is one way to put it, a push/pull type motion with the air flow, that is the idea anyways. The heat travels around the smaller keg that is used at the retort. Hope that makes sense?

Also, here is the rocket stove without the added insulation.

Thanks for the input! It was right at 32 degrees farenheight outside today. I am not sure exactly what temperatures the kiln reached, I haven't purchased a thermometer yet. Because this was my first burn I was unsure of how long to burn, but I stood there for 2.5 hours and continually added wood as other logs had burned down. I then added wood from salvaged pallets and they actually seemed to have burned better. I want to try with a different retort, one with material other than stainless steel.

I created a J-tube using 75 firebricks. Recently I used perlite insulation held in by cinder-blocks to insulate around the heat riser. The rocket stove is working wonderfully, the fire is burning sideways and is reaching high temperatures. On top of the rocket stove I used two bricks and some angle iron to elevate an oxygen limited retort right above the heat, around that I place a 55 gallon drum with the bottom cut out and a chimney on top to create a stack effect. The biomass placed inside the stainless steel retort did not char, I was certain that some of it would. Any advice on this? I did do some further research and saw that stainless steel is very heat resistant, and Im starting to see that it may not have been the best option.

Just wanted to share a few photos with you all, I have made some progress with the biochar retort kiln. I have not mortared anything together yet, but I did stack the bricks in the formation they will eventually be mortared. I did start a fire in it, and it burned horizontally just like it was supposed to, pretty amazing to see. This will be a two barrel design just like shown in the photo, but instead of just a burn barrel on the bottom, the rocket stove will be incorporated.

I am most certainly interested!!! Oh wait... broke volunteer here who cannot afford the workshop... and cannot do more volunteer work on the farm in lieu of the admission fee, darn ... so much for "the love of the craft"..

With my current internship I am able to spend 5% of my time doing volunteer work outside of my organization, I would be willing to do that. I am currently in Butte.

Any love for a young/broke biochar/RMH enthusiast in the area? I would love to attend, and although the price seems very fair, I just do not have the means right now on my current living stipend.

Thanks for the input, guys! R. Scott, the YouTube video you posted is a great video, The design looks very similar to what I had drawn up and planned to build.

Hello all,

I have introduced my project in previous post. I am basically building a biochar retort kiln, more specifically, I am incorporating a hornito design alteration. This kiln does feature Ianto Evan's rocket stove design on the bottom. This photo demonstrates the rocket stove with the retort kiln on top (in this case it is a 55 gallon drum with another drum around it altered to be made a little bigger). I understand how this type of system works, and it most cases it works well. Although, I wanted to ask you all for any suggestions on how I might flip these drums horizontally to make loading/unloading a little easier. Below is a photo of a basic hornito design.