DIY smokeless Charcoal Kiln | How to make BioChar

Walking you through how I made a smoke free kiln, to make biochar from bamboo. We use our biochar in multiple ways; from increasing the bio diversity of our soils, to filtering our water, to absorbing moisture in our tropical home.

[@batchrocketproject4720]

Nice build. The first hole was a miraculuous fit. Pity the last batch burnt itself. Keep at it. Thanks.

[@shaunbriody8133]

In your design you need to take the wood gass from the top of your wood drum to the bottom inlet of your fire with a inch steel pipe this will stop a lot of the charcoal from burning and making it a lot cleaner free from smoke and will also take away the pressure from your top lid seal. 👍🤗

[@thefreegivores]

Thanks for the tip! Although I cannot seem to make out exactly what you mean, from your message 🙃

[@Wilderness_Tv]

You need to use the wood gas that is created in the drum (flamable) to use it as a secondary fuel. (redirect it to the burning tube). Watch '' rt1000 charcoal retort'' from ''4 seasons fuels''. Basically the principle of a double burn wood stove. Hope it helps

[@mellis966]

@@Wilderness_Tv Great Idea. You are talking about placing a pipe into the lid in the top and then routing that pipe down the side, underneath and then up a little bit into the flame tube. ... That is awesome. So you are using the gas pressure inside to fuel the fire. A bit of this might be going on all ready because the lid is shut the only place for gas to exit would be out of the holes at the bottom. Another approach if there is not enough pressure would be to use a small turbo charger on the exhaust tube. The exhaust tube would need to neck down to create more flow velocity. Once the fire got hot the turbocharger would spool up and pump the woodgas into the bottom flame inlet. If you had enough wood it would be very effective.

[@Wilderness_Tv]

No not from the top or you'll get steam in it more like from the middle. You must be careful the flame does not come inside from the pipe / same goes for kiln burner that must be separate from the charcoal exauhst vapor pipe.

[@Wilderness_Tv]

But yes this is the idea.

[@gusmanagusmana6669]

Hey that is really good efficient design, i notice that you live in indonesia, which part is it? Have you try to make rice husk (sekam padi) charcoal?

[@thefreegivores]

Thanks for your feedback. We’ve been gifted rice husk charcoal once before but have never tried to make it ourselves. At this stage, we are utilizing by products from this land, for making biochar and rice husk is not something we currently have on this land…

[@rchristie5401]

I dont see any smoke..do you see any smoke?????

[@andrewbratos6907]

great job and great video, get rid of the nut & bolt, find a pair of vise grips that fit.

[@rajiv080887]

good morning sir.. what is the used of foam and steel cover? how it works and purposed?

[@thefreegivores]

Hi, it a ceramic fibre blanket. It is used to maintain the heat better I believe. I am sure if could work without it I was only following a design on saw on the web. Good luck 🤞🏼

[@mellis966]

@@thefreegivores Id guess the insulation is to keep the temperature in the oven uniform. It also helps prevent children and animals from getting severe burns from touching hot steel.

[@kisuke6517]

how do you know if the charcoal is ready? do you continue putting fire wood or at the start only? thanks

[@thefreegivores]

I continue to put fire wood in, to maintain the flame for approximately 4 hours. After about 4 hours, I allow the flame to organically die out.

[@bijan.p]

Please tell me what you have wrapped around the barrel.

[@mellis966]

It looks like a quartz fiber insulation blanket. It is a refractory material used a lot in kilns and furnaces.

[@ranger_27]

after the burning process done, just let it sit and don't open the lid until next day so that you can get the perfect charcoal not the ashes

[@lawrencelawrence3920]

Should have super quenched the char or taken it out of the barrel and spilled it onto the ground and applied water.

[@samanmudannayaka9604]

You need to put clay around the lid in the groove before fitting it to the barrel, not on the outside. You got that last one burnt because it wasn't sealed properly.

[@charlescoker7752]

You did not show putting the wood in the drum. Just dropping wood in the pipe.

[@thefreegivores]

Thanks for pointing this out. Will add it in the next charcoal making video 👍

[@Wilderness_Tv]

7:09 what's the tree you showed? Thanks.

[@thefreegivores]

Actually not sure of the tree’s name. We just call it our rain Forrest tree, it is the tallest tree we have on our land, and the eagles in the area love it!

[@dewy330]

It burnt to ashes because you didnt wet it well enough and dump it out. It ignites on its own if left in the barrel

[@ryelor123]

I have a tip for you that'll make a lot of your projects much easier: use imperial measurements. They're much better for fabrication since you can divide stuff by 3 and they're just much more practical. Metric is great for chemistry and physics but its really not very good for construction.

[@joelwells2169]

I opened my bin one time and didn't water it and the char caught on fire from being exposed to oxygen hahaha can relate to that last part

[@swow1234]

What kind of foam did you use for your insulation?

[@nguyentrieuphuc4007]

Ceramic Fiber

[@thefreegivores]

Sorry for the late reply, I recall that it is a ceramic fiber blanket that I used

[@swow1234]

@@thefreegivores ok thank you

[@malcolm2587]

Radical distillation is the process of making activated carbon and byproducts

[@realestatewebsingapore7276]

it really hard to remember to word Freegivores...

[@thefreegivores]

Thanks for the feedback… maybe we will include an explanation on how we got to this name in one of our next videos and then perhaps you’ll remeber it 😁

[@agil3900]

this video was made in bali 😆

[@elsonmekgwe854]

Sorry your project has failed. I am not surprised many a copy cat do fail.