jaymo

Fantastic!! Sent from my iPhone using Arbtalk

What you selling wolf? Sent from my iPhone using Arbtalk

Hi. Yes I work for Tregothnan, have done for a little over 4 years now so relatively new to the charcoal world. Personally I would be more than happy to show you around, it's great to have other burners opinions and I feel there is a lot we can learn from eachother experiences. Let me clear it with management first just to be on the safe side. what system are you using at the moment?

I suppose you are utilising a product that would have originally gone to waste. That is all we are doing (kind of) but on a larger scale. Originally the estate set up the charcoal buisness after the 89 hurricane (long before I started) after that all the smaller diameter wood that was once pushed up and burn now had a new use. Now we produce cord wood for firewood, 6-7 inches and above and anything less will go into the charcoal production. We also have the advantage of our 1500 acres on the doorstep, production cost have to be kept to a minimum so as to make any sort of profit on this scale so everything is sourced from here within 2 miles or so. It helps with having such a large amount of Woodland the forestry team can be selective over what they cut and when they cut it, ideal to ensure the best mix of wood is been used to produce charcoal. All of this really does go in our favour.

Hi the standard 2 cylinder retort starts around £18,000-19,000 I believe. We made some alterations to the design... Thicker steel in places, higher profile to aid with unloading, larger cylinder, larger firebox etc so the price goes up accordingly. There are cheaper models like the single cylinder retort. It's worth a look on the 'four seasons fuels' website.

Hmm if I'm honest there is slight warping.. I am also yet to find a kiln that doesn't suffer from this. We did consider the carbon gold design which if memory serves me correctly used direct heat rather than the usual indirect. It had two large cylinders You would load processed wood into the top and unload 'charcoal' from the bottom. I got the impression it was still in the testing stage and they wanted to use us as Guineapigs. Don't get me wrong they had some fantastic ideas but unfortunately they just went proven with this new design we saw. Pressvess have a large factory based in West Midlands, definitely worth a visit if you get the invite. Nick Harris is the designer ( in my opinion really knows his stuff)he would build to whatever specs you require. after sales is good too. We have two of the large pressvess retorts. The first was purchased 12 months ago which we would burn 3 times over 3 days, then couple of months later we had the second retort. Now we burn both retorts, twice over 4 long days. Producing about 2000 kg per 4 day week. I work for a large estate based in Kent.

I currently us the Pressvess retorts. larger than the standard model. I have two retorts which produce approximately 500 kg per burn. we upgraded our container retorts 12 month ago and haven't looked back since. 500kg of charcoal p/day p/retort aint to bad