Dan Swartzenheimer

Heck, what you need is a diesel space heater with a stove pipe on it and a transition at the other end to go to your batch box. That'll heat up it's innerds in no time.

I'm planning on a rocket stove for 24x32 barn with decent insulation. I'm wanting to make the mass out of (2) steel 55 gal drums welded end to end, fed by a batch box made of fire brick and a CFB riser. The bell is a 55 gal steel drum over the riser. The CSA will be about 25sq in. (5"x5"). The (2) 55 gallon drums as the mass. So I have a few questions:

1) what's the difference between a j-tube and a batch box?
2) If it's a batch box, I understand that I need a 2ndary air inlet.
3) Can I get by with single wall flue pipe, or do I need double wall? Flue pipe is pretty pricey.
4) What kind of insulation do I need underneath the  mass? Can I use rigid foam board?
5) What about having the burn chamber below ground level? I have a dirt floor in the barn.
6) Is the mass ever too big? Like I said, I'm going to have (2) 55 gal drums end to end covered with cob and rocks.

I bought some silica gel and 100% lye and made some water glass according to clkindred's video: 'Homemade sodium silicate (water glass)'.

200g of sodium hydroxide
300g of silica gel
500ml of water

When I had all the ingredients added and started stirring and heating it over a hot plate, I started thinking I was using the wrong type of silica gel because the silica gel consisted of little tiny balls of what appeared to be the kind of material that pills are coated with. I could not get them to dissolved. I kept crushing them with a fork. It started to form a film over the top and when I started to get the results described in the video, I put the contents in a 16 oz glass jar without the clumps of little round balls. I'm going to try this with some perlite, fire clay and furnace cement:

15 parts Perlite
2 parts fireclay
2 parts furnace cement (1/2 Gal)
1 part Water Glass (home made)
about 40oz of water was used throughout the process

and see how it turns out. I've attached some pictures of the water glass after I had it all dissolved.

After searching for TLUD in wikipedia, it says you can use manure and where I live at, there are plenty of cow chips laying around.

Where I live at in eastern WY, there's not that many trees, but there are, in fact coal mines so I would be more interested in building a stove that burns coal. At any rate, I'll so a search for TULD.

Yeah, charcoal works best. I don't think wood would work at all in this application.

the only flame I have is when I start the coals using one of those metal cylinders with the flap in it. I have a bunch of egg cartons filled with dryer lint embedded wax. I can usually get 10 or 12 coals going with 2 of the egg-cartons starters in about 10 minutes. As long as there's no wind, it's pretty safe to cook this way. Just make sure all the coals are out when you're done.

Is there any reason why I have to have the exhaust port on the bottom? Is it because the gasses need to pass down the sides to cool?

In case you don't know what egg bread is: I got these pans after watching a Korean street vender make 'em:  put thin layer of pancake mix on bottom, then sausage (already browned) mixed with eggs. 3 eggs is enough for 2 batches.

I made some egg bread using a dutch oven right on top of about 10 coals, and it was enough to make 2 batches of egg bread in my special pans inside the oven.
Then I got to looking up 'Dakota Oven'' and found no standard way to do it (10 people have 15 diff. methods), so I was wondering If you could dig a hole in the general shape you wanted and then form the rest of the hole just so it could have coals all around and a grate at the bottom so air could come up underneath.