Making Charcoal With A Cone Pit For Biochar Potting Mix

This video details the use of a cone pit to create a large volume of charcoal for use in making our potting mixes at Honey Badger Nursery. The charcoal will be inoculated and charged with nutrient to become biochar, at which point we'll mix it with double ground red oak bark and mushroom compost to form the base of our potting mix we use in the nursery and air-pruning beds. The biochar replaces perlite and vermiculite that is commonly used in most commercial potting mix brands, while providing a whole host of benefits that perlite or vermiculite do not.
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[@howyacuttin9087]

Well done and eloquent. Thanks

[@cohenreyes1499]

AY ! LETS GO ! I GOTTA BRING SOME ENERGY to this Comment sections Because this was a Great Video ! Thank you for your demonstration . And I love that you recogize the healing you are doing the landscape as you mention . Beautiful Video . I appreciate the Soul and dedication you have for what you do . Thank you Again

[@thesovereignhomestead]

@cohenreyes1499 I appreciate the positive reinforcement :)

[@MoonSnot-yi4zd]

The beacons of minas tirith lol. I was like man I wanna be friends with this g. Bout to go hit this up myself and hoping mine doesn’t end up more minas morgul haha. If you don’t already you should write!

[@thesovereignhomestead]

Minas Morgul wouldn't be ideal for biochar but it sure might be fun in the moment!

[@JahGwa]

Yeah man this video is amazing. Definitely doing this method. Thank you for posting 🙏🏾🤞🏾

[@MrMCKlebeband]

the smaller stuff is pyrolyzed quickly anyway... if you care about getting good, full pyrolization without much ash, in an open pit, the key is to have batched of mostly uniform diameter of the same kind of wood... obviously you will get inconsistent results if you add batched of mixed diameter and different woods, breaking up smaller branches, to lower the oxygen's area of attack for actually burning because we dont want it to burn.

[@randytschupp9937]

all about input output percentage, at some point it's just not economic to chop everything it up to equal size, especially if you have abundance of wood. unburnt pieces can be put aside and burned another time.

[@MrMCKlebeband]

@@randytschupp9937 yeah, without a woodchipper i would not bother

[@B30pt87]

Hey! Thank you so much for demonstrating this method. Much appreciated.

[@Changing_the_game]

Nice job.🎉

[@lawrencelawrence3920]

Would have like to see you driving and sifting it and the finished product , its size and how you charged it up.

[@SkyeRiv]

Hello!! Can you do a video on how you charge your Biochar? I am addicted to Biochar videos😍

[@thesovereignhomestead]

Yes, it's on the to-do list!

[@winijwanichpol1194]

สวนที่บ้านผมก็ทำเหมือนกัน ต้นเงาะที่สวนมีกิ่งที่ตัดแต่งนำมาเผาได้จำนวนมากเลย

[@MrMCKlebeband]

if you use such small diameter pieces in your later batches of wood, break them appart better so they cuddle closer and dont let oxygen penetrate as well, you got a very white pit at the end, much of that pinky diameter suff just turned into ash completely.

[@LeatherHomestead-io8dt]

Hey great burn. I'm north of nashville and love everything charcoal, what part of the state are you?

[@evil17]

Looks like a good solution for larger properties who need to clear out bigger area’s & a quick way to amass a reasonable return of biochar. I have several large heaps of wattle I cleared last year with a backhoe on a 40 acre property, I imagine I could just let the heaps burn down to a point and quench the fires out prematurely with my 1000 ltr fire fighter to obtain a similar result and aquire a heap of biochar this way for garden & agricultural use, pick out any large pieces that didn’t burn enough and put them on the next heap for a re-burn, does that sound reasonable?

[@thesovereignhomestead]

That would definitely work - look up top lit burn piles as a way to maximize your char retention. I've got a video detailing a small top-lit burn pile here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qqHbgJltbKqmZqM We've since evolved and now light the entire perimeter and top of the pile at the same time - turns the pile into an oven that just bakes everything in the middle, and the burn goes very quickly and evenly. Good luck with your forest clearing and char making!

[@evil17]

@@thesovereignhomestead great & thanks for ur speedy reply & vid. Cheers

[@KennethGriffith_International]

What were the dimensions of the cone pit?

[@caseypfeifer1524]

About 1 shovel's length in diameter and about half the shovel's length in depth. Steepish sides but not so steep that it inhibits the fire breathing when it is still small at the bottom of the pit. I can measure exactly later of you remind me, but it doesn't need to be exact - once you start digging you'll know :) Good luck!

[@patrickmihajlovic4112]

You are waiting to long. Allowing loss of char by turning it into ashes.... Woodash is very usefull also but as far i've understood you it wasn't the goal to make big amounts of woodash !??

[@harrymills2770]

You're one step away from a wood gasifier. You're just wasting all the gas and making things really smoky in your immediate neighborhood. It'd be fun to make charcoal on the side by burning a small part of that wood in a small hot fire, directed at the rest of the wood in a chamber with a pipe running out of it. Heat up the chamber, and the wood in the oxygen-depleted chamber will emit flammable gas that will go out through the pipe. The used-up wood in the chamber will be charcoal. The gas in the pipe can be pumped into a propane tank. Gas for lighting, heating and engines. I think this is a great way to amend soil, but the method pollutes the air a lot.

[@dalimwagore6871]

Hi. I like your comment.I make 'biochar' (it is not baked in a non-oxygen environment) for briquettes using this method. But would really like to do what you are saying so that I can use the heat to dry the briquettes. Please can you draw a prototype design I can use? Much appreciated. Can send you my email if need be.