Eco logs

[renewablejohn]

My hydraulic briquette press will produce paper briquettes from shredded paper but it does use 80 bar of hydraulic pressure which is a bit more than the press you are looking at. The problem with paper alone is the very high ash content when compared to burning wood.

[gensetsteve]

You could sell them at a farmers market. Think of a huge price ie chicken at tesco £3.30 chicken at farmers market £7.95

[djbobbins]

I'd been wondering about making compacted logs out of a mix of sawdust and paper, but hadn't bothered because of too many other things to do.

 

I had even thought about boiling the paper and sawdust in water to help break the cellulose down - I thought it might help the end product bind together better at e.g. 70% sawdust : 30% paper, which would presumably give less of an ashing problem.

 

Whilst I've got a plentiful source of free alder logs I think I'll give it a miss.

 

FWIW my mother used to reckon a Yellow Pages was a good way to get the Rayburn going at home...!

[djbobbins]

You could sell them at a farmers market. Think of a huge price ie chicken at tesco £3.30 chicken at farmers market £7.95

 

Or you could just buy chickens in Tesco and sell them at a farmers market?!

 

Not that I'd advocate that of course, 'cos it would be entirely unethical... but I did wonder how well "posh" locally produced charcoal would sell at a farmers' market. I was thinking of selling by weight on a "choose your own" basis with a choice of e.g. alder, ash, etc, with printed labels saying where the wood came from, what the properties of the charcoal were etc.

 

As an extra product, I thought (if any was available) chipped fruit woods might sell well as a flavour enhancer for the bbq, or for using in a smoker.

 

Anyone got any drawings or instructions for making half decent looking homemade smokers? Just another sideline maybe...

[gensetsteve]

Or you could just buy chickens in Tesco and sell them at a farmers market?!

 

Not that I'd advocate that of course, 'cos it would be entirely unethical... but I did wonder how well "posh" locally produced charcoal would sell at a farmers' market. I was thinking of selling by weight on a "choose your own" basis with a choice of e.g. alder, ash, etc, with printed labels saying where the wood came from, what the properties of the charcoal were etc.

 

As an extra product, I thought (if any was available) chipped fruit woods might sell well as a flavour enhancer for the bbq, or for using in a smoker.

 

Anyone got any drawings or instructions for making half decent looking homemade smokers? Just another sideline maybe...

 

You could buy the charcoal at tesco rebag it into hessian bags and call it fair trade ( you did pay yourself at least minimum wage ) completely unethical and you would have to put on a posh voice all day

[hilken]

Hello,This is my first post, so here goes,

In June I imported a small pellet mill from China

with the intention of getting a pellet sove before the winter.

I am pleased I never as the output of the mill was so low that I was lucky to make 1/2 a sack of sawdust pellets / day. so on ebay it went.

The sacks of pellets I made are being used as cat litter, so no loss.

Next I made a briquette press with a 2 ton bottle jack,

It makes 2 house brick sized block at a time in under 2 minutes.

I use newspaper or cardboard as a binder and sawdust,

The only problem is the drying out time,they burn well on the aga and also woodburner and I will definately be making more this summer.

Also I have converted a log splitter to make briquettes but have trouble getting them to bind, I think I will need to heat the output pipe,

this can wait until the weather warms up a bit.

Its like the one in the link below

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrFI7OyKDoo&feature=related]YouTube - Brikettpresse, Brikettierpresse.wmv[/ame]

Outdoorjoe I am sure you will have fun with your press, but if possible use a paper sawdust mix, not much ash at all, and if anyone can suggest a quick method of drying them it would be great.

Thanks

[woodrascal]

...they burn well on the aga and also woodburner and I will definately be making more this summer.

 

You've got a woodburning Aga?

[hilken]

Sorry for that should have said Aga type

its a Tirolia multi fuel cooker

I use anthracite to keep it going overnight ,

but briquettes through the day.

[twmarriott]

Sorry for that should have said Aga type

its a Tirolia multi fuel cooker

I use anthracite to keep it going overnight ,

but briquettes through the day.

 

sadly you can't get solid fuel agas now and they only ever ran on smokeless fuels any way, didn't like wood.

The rayburn we have is much better and will burn anything and runs 10 rads and mains pressure hot water via a heat exchanger. Tirolia cookers aren't pretty but are good, and proabably more suited to timber as they have a larger fire box. my grand parents had one.

still not convinced with paper logs though too much ash.

Glossy mags will kill a rayburn.

Wood chip for smoking isn't a bad idea though!