Big biochar stove in action again

Here's the hot shot of the day... charring a post on top of our big Elsa stove using as biomass source the trimmings of the same grapevines where the biochar that was produced was then eventually deposited! Nice closed cycle of Carbon...

Check out the short video-clip with my little helper on the site!

Lots of preparation came into this project, extending the body of the stove that we tested last month.

The base is the same of last time: 4 bricks, one of which is halfway open at the beginning and then gets pushed in to reduce the inlet of oxygen from the bottom.
On the right in the previous picture, there is also the metal choke base that we're testing this time: at the end of the process we'll have to move the stove on top of this base which is tightly closing the bottom of the stove. Pouring river sand on top will do the dry quenching that we want... 

All the trimmings had to be chopped and kept dry until this very moment.
Small bits (about 3" inches long, roughly 8-9 cm) are set at the bottom, then the bigger chunks are laid down a bit at the time, between all the small bits

  

We found also a dead lizard between the hazelnut shells that we saved in a bag: it will turn into biochar as well... Hare lizard Ohm...

Then it's time to set it on fire... go!

The flame is really clean... and quite impressively tall. Totally smokeless.
Spiraling around this 25 cm wide eco-vulcano... 

At the end, in order to use a little bit of this big flame for some extra purpose besides making biochar, I decided to prop up a post charring its tip. This will make it last longer when it's going to be set in the ground.

Nice shot... isn't it???
The almost squared-foot of ground underneath got (obviously) burn too. Sorry that I couldn't avoid this from happening but cooked seeds won't sprout here for a little while... 

The final biochar deposit has been listed also on CO2OffsetBank page, ranking at 2.1 kg biochar that equals to 8 kg of sequestered C02!