BioChar Burner

i need a smoke break and gotta get my kid off the bus in a bit, but i will be back later to explain what's happening and what i've learned about fuel choices and results.

Incredible man, I always advice people to watch ever single of his videos. I doubt he knows how far he's reached into our community

Phenomenal translation to text, excited to see your test results

Hey guys,

If you're not interested or able to make your own biochar kiln, check out this company re:char based in Oakland (www.re-char.com). They can sell you a pre made biochar kiln and ship it to you, or they can supply you with pre-mixed biochar soil. They have a bunch of tailored options that aren't on the website specifically for growers (just shoot them an email). I've been using their Black Revolution (funny sh*t) soilless growth media in pots with some harborside clones. I find I water them about half as much, and I'm saving the earth.

I've linked many of his videos in various threads. He's a good guy. Are you modeling this off his 2.0 video? BioChar is such a fantastic thing:

Fun Fact: While compost (humus) and clay will bind the cations for us (K, NA, CA, etc) The anions (like N) are sort of floating around, not so tightly bound. You can wash away Anions like N, but the Cations are held more tightly to the Humus and clay. Well, Biochar holds anions very well. So not only a home for microbes, but an anion sequester also.

Originally Posted by Rrog

I've linked many of his videos in various threads. He's a good guy. Are you modeling this off his 2.0 video? BioChar is such a fantastic thing:

Fun Fact: While compost (humus) and clay will bind the cations for us (K, NA, CA, etc) The anions (like N) are sort of floating around, not so tightly bound. You can wash away Anions like N, but the Cations are held more tightly to the Humus and clay. Well, Biochar holds anions very well. So not only a home for microbes, but an anion sequester also.

I knew I was paying heaps for it for a reason

I'll be building one. Plan to use the wood pellets also. That's a good size particle. I use spent carbon from air filter currently.

Ok, so whats happening here (or what we want to happen) is pyrolysis. This is when the gases in the wood get steamed out by the heat of the coal. Have you ever put a fresh log on a bonfire and 10 minutes later it was hissing and steaming out of one end? this is the same thing except lots of pieces of wood steaming all at once, and in a low oxygen environment. you will fill your burner with some sort of wood, then light a fire on top long enough to create some coal, then put the chimney on before the flame goes all the way out. the heat of the flame and early coals will rise up the chimney and pull air through the bottom of the burner, thus exciting the coals and creating more heat to steam out more gases and pull in more air....FOR E VER !!!!! be careful the burner gets EXTREMELY hot. mine is more like a death burner straight from the face of the sun! you will feel the heat from 5 feet away when its roaring (literally) so keep your kids back, pets back, don't walk away from it, please no accidents! to remove the chimney, Bryan uses some channel lock pliers that allow him to grab it from an angle and avoid burning himself. I don't own channel locks so I use a 3 ft wooden stick in the upper chimney hole, then gently wet it down with a hose sprayer or a bottle of water with your finger over it. beware of the steam, it is dangerous too.
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anyway as the heated gases rise, they will go past all those holes in the rim and be introduced to oxygen and ignite. for the most part, the flame actually hovers above the wood. so you're burning only the wood gases that are steamed off, leaving the carbon behind. also, no smoke!
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as mentioned in the first post, we don't want it to breath too well or the flames will chase down in the can, like mine. when that happens, it can actually burn the wood and leave you with ashes, which brings me to the next subject....fuel.

for the initial light Bryan uses iso alcohol , you can use charcoal fluid sparingly if your out, or a handful of twigs, whatever
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fuel sources: Bryan uses wood pellets in his burner. I don't have any of those, maybe i'll buy some one day to try it out, but first i used just some chunks of wood from an old tree. For a full can of wood, i only got about a quarter can of char.

So then I thought I'd try to make my own wood pellets from some branches that the neighborhood landscapers left in the field behind my house. that was a lot of work! and again not that worth it. the first 2 burns with homemade pellets retained 25%each time and 50% on the third burn. so after 4 or 5 burns, I had 1 gallon of biochar....
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I was a little bent because it wasn't that efficient. I decided to cut up some old pieces of 2x4 I had laying around, and that was the ticket. the wood is cut up the center longways, then cut every 1/2 inch or so, then arranged as tightly as possible in the burner. these cubes make excellent char that breaks up easily and uniform, and I retain about 85-90%
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random things I've learned:
if you jump the gun and put it out too early, it will smell like wood. like a campfire. and the char will be smoky too.
if you get a good burn, it will smell bad like sulfur and rotten eggs when put out, and the char will be almost oderless
if you just wait, patiently, it will actually "run out of gas" and go out, that's a good burn.


biochar is adsorbant, and will suck the nutes out of the soil it is added to. as a preemptive measure, Bryan recommends the biochar be charged and dried before adding to or under the soil. this can be done with many things like aact, kelp water, urine water, chicken poo tea, any em-1 solution or fpe's. I will be using an aact with a dash of bio canna.

Happy Gardening!

yes mine is modeled after the 2.0 it was an ingenious modification imo, using the heat to create a pre-draft.

spent filters, and campgrounds are great sources for extra char. I read somewhere that cowboy coal is basically biochar, but I only found 1 cowboy coal locally, and it was made by kingsford, so i passed.