Charcoal retort woes

[Farmer Tom]

Thanks Farmer Tom,feeling a bit more upbeat today!

 

Just used the clamps to seal the drum

 

Clamps?

Ah, maybe I have the wrong sort of drum, mine ( or the ones I can get for free) have a sort of rolled/folded join at the end.

[smiles]

At a guess if you ave lots of brown ends it is one of two reasons:

The fire underneath did not get hot enough, or

you did not burn it for long enough, or

both of the above.

Good luck

 

I thought that,but had the fire woofing good and hard for two and a half hours and its distorted the 1" box section that the drums sit on!

 

I thought that the wood gas would take over at this point and I could sit back and relax !

 

If I do have to add more fuel wood i may as well go back to the old kiln system as I will run out of wood, a bit frustrating to say the least!

 

Cheers

Steve

[smiles]

Clamps?

Ah, maybe I have the wrong sort of drum, mine ( or the ones I can get for free) have a sort of rolled/folded join at the end.

 

Yeah,just an over-centre sort of clamp that pulls the lid onto the rolled joint - mind you I had to pay £10 for each drum!

[Chris Sheppard]

I thought that,but had the fire woofing good and hard for two and a half hours and its distorted the 1" box section that the drums sit on!

 

I thought that the wood gas would take over at this point and I could sit back and relax !

 

If I do have to add more fuel wood i may as well go back to the old kiln system as I will run out of wood, a bit frustrating to say the least!

 

Cheers

Steve

 

I wonder if it would make any diference if you put slightly less wood in each drum, just for comparison. It looked quite tightly packed in the pics - I don't know if that would make any difference to how the gasses circulate within the drum?

[smiles]

I wonder if it would make any diference if you put slightly less wood in each drum, just for comparison. It looked quite tightly packed in the pics - I don't know if that would make any difference to how the gasses circulate within the drum?

 

 

Good point,definately seemed to work best around here - mind you I suppose the this would be the hottest part,I put in the three vent points to try and allow the gas free passage,a lot of the remaining brown ends were stuck together with tar so must need to get hotter.

[wrekin woodsman]

have run retorts a few times and yours seems to be under insulated to much gas venting,and burn time should be dictated by gassing ie when the gas stops its charcoal.looks a cracking set up . keep the faith!

[John Thomas]

Have you tried rotating your drums while cooking

[renewablejohn]

Thanks John, i had seen that one,but had discounted it on the loss of volume from the central flue - but looks like the insulation is going to be key,just wanted to test the theory out before investing in insulation,but looks like I might have to bite the bullet on that one! was the double barrel just piggy backed on top?

 

Think your gut feel is the same as mine Chris,next plan is to block half the holes and reduce the hole size on the remaining ones.

 

The brown ends were thoughout the drum,but the best conversion was generally at the top of the drum and close to the drum skin.

 

Just the one flue,being lazy on that one,it's the old oil filler hole which is six inch with a length of seven inch liner screwed on - but it didn't seem to be shifting much smoke,thinking that two smaller liners may be better,get hot and draw better directly over each drum!

 

The second barrel seemed to use the extension pipe seen in the first video with a gap of approx 6 inches between barrels which I presume was the original chimney stub which the extension chimney connected to. I think the gas from the 2nd barrel was just vented as I could not see any pipe connecting to the bottom tank.

 

Looking at your setup it should work but I think you may have gone wrong with your barrel openings facing outwards. The clamp seals on your barrels will not be air tight . To solve the problem I would rotate the barrels so that the lids are at the back of the chamber then the gas will be fully combusted. Also have faith in keeping your doors closed.

 

Dont give up have another burn as suggested and see what your results are. Its not a precise science but one you learn with experience.

[smiles]

Thanks for all the suggestions chaps,not easy to rotate or turn the drum as the frame that supports them would get in the way of the manifolds and the drum has to be loaded in position and is too heavy to move afterwards - however will try to seal lid better and improve heat containment/insulation and try again at the weekend.

 

The faith is a bit stronger than it was ,but I'll do a couple of tradditional burns just in case!

 

Cheers

Steve

[smiles]

Well,Kept the faith,reduced the jet size in the manifolds,reduced the amount of wood in the drums to allow the gases free exit,rammed the retort with about as much sacrificial wood as I could - and kept the doors shut,for most of it anyway - had to open the righthand door when the gassing on the lefthand barrel looked like faltering (the righthand barrel would appear to have finished by then).

And the results were superb,well pleased 100% conversion,very little dust.

 

Thanks for all the advice and support - got to uprate the air inlets and start thinking about insulation!

 

Cheers

Steve