[TheForge] Re: eco coke

[Mike Spencer]

> ...I fail to see how this differs in substance from other methods of
> making charcoal, using the off-gases as fuel, and producing an
> equally clean product.

The difference is that no intake air ever reaches the wood that's to
become charcoal.  In the traditional method, whether in a can or in a
brick kiln or under a pile of dirt, the main bolus of wood gets
ignited and then you have to watch the air intake like a hawk lest it
be too much and the product is consumed or too little and it goes
out.  Recycling and burning the emitted volatiles as fuel helps but
doesn't eliminate that problem.

In the video, The Guy has lots of nice little, very dry bits of wood
to fit into the annular space around his "retort".  That would be easy
if you had a production pine furniture shop or a millwork on the
place.  Harder if you just want to exploit some already-felled trees
that would otherwise go to waste, with no convenient way to produce a
bunch of very dry kindling-like bits.

Off and on, I've been trying to figure out how to get the same effect
with a 200 gal oil tank.  Not so easy to jigger it around the way they
do the 50 gal. drum. And I don't have a supply of dry pine offcuts or
such. 

I'm sorry I never went over and got acquainted with the people who
made charcoal when I lived, 40 years ago, a couple of miles from a
working charcoal business. [1] Periodically, a stratum of smoke would
drift down the Sawmill River valley for a couple of days and then, a
while later, trucks of charcoal would pass on the way to market.  All
defunct now.
 


[1] http://home.comcast.net/~tm01001/levkiln.htm

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^