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!

Biochar in the vineyard

Today, we have to get a chance of good weather before the next upcoming forecast rains: it's time to do some biochar in the vineyard... using some of the chopped up branches of grapevines that have been drying in the last days. I guess it counts as one of our special homeschooling days.



The preparation is a bit tricky since we have to prepare everything, loading the little car we have available at the moment and reach the spot: do the all thing then... pack up everything and get back home.

Big stove beast: ready and hungry

Yeah... we're really getting so close now to the first test burn. Just a few little details need to be improved and my biggest Elsa stove is going to be making biochar soon.

The pattern needs to be tighten up, to maximize primary air flow.

Feeding a big stove beast

In these days I am getting properly geared up to start feeding the biggest Elsa stove that I have ever built... piles of grapevines branches need to be efficiently chopped up and cannot wait anymore to become biochar and return to the soil that grew them.

Yes... that's a regular volleyball ball next to the main parts of the stove that still need to be put together. Not really sure now how to handle this baby as a cooking stove... but I guess that I'll figure that out later on, if I find a proper size pot to put on top of it!
There's a simple but handy trick that I am going to focus on now: it's about how to use efficiently a hand tool to produce large amounts of chopped out biomass, like branches and big leaves... you could use this trick whenever you need to process large amounts of biomass to add to your compost piles, like I did before.
So, check this out.

A stack of stoves

Just playing a bit some nights ago... indeed I had realized that I could do this before but this is just the first time that I got myself around it and actually did it! Stack up various part of different-size Elsa stoves and see it fire up!

  

Biochar stove meeting

In a sunny morning, friendly hosted at closed doors under the stunning green-living roof of the FatCat organic cafe' in Pai, an historical biochar stove meeting have happened: the meeting between Elsa stove and Planestove.

  

Check out the following shots and hold on for further developments.

Troubles extending a stove

A few days have passed since in my previous post I shared my idea of Extending a stove by inserting some metal cylinder, adapted can or folded sheet, between the mouth piece and the bottom of an already made stove.

The purpose would be quite positive but I must admit that the application has been not completely satisfactory up until now. The main issue is not getting a complete process as some of the biomass on the bottom of the stove fails to become biochar.



This is almost for sure due to the fact that the joints between the three pieces (bottom, extension, top mouth piece) are definitely not air-tight. Other practical solutions rather than the very basic ones that I tried to apply are not easy to perform at this early stage of development.
I feel it's important to share ideas but also "not-completely-positive" results as somebody's failures or just experiences may be crucial information for others to avoid trouble.



Anyway the rice was nicely cooked and the biochar production was perfect in the other 80% of the biomass load. It's been worth all the efforts, now I will have to proceed in a different way... 

Baking in the biochar

Now that my latest Elsa stoves have grown up in size, making more biochar in one time, today it's the first time that I realized that there is also another bonus and it's that I can actually bake inside the stove!

Look what I wrapped up in aluminum foil and tossed into the stove while it was in full pyrolisys... the first baking test!

Extending a stove

As some basic instructions on how to build an Elsa stove have been given at my previous post The birth of a biochar stove, now I would like just to share some insight about a very practical modification that can be applied on an already built stove or implemented during the construction of a new stove from the beginning.

It's about finding a good point where to cut the stove in two pieces... and extend it properly in order to load more biomass and so having flames that last longer.

At the moment it's just the beginning of some new experiments but I definitely think that having sets of cans exactly with the same sizes and repeating the same joining procedures... you could extend your stove at the desired height. There must be a limit but it would be very nice to discover it empirically try to add more and more extensions to see what happens.

Well, still on the search for other cans with the same sizes, I will have to test some other solutions and see how it goes. Keep checking out the next posts...  

Carbon negative cooking slightly oversized

Some days ago I tried to cook (successfully at the end) using the big Elsa stove that I had previously put together. Not having any adjustable frame handy I decided to hang a pot from above and just give it a try, regulating the height with the length of the rope.

Indeed it worked but... ehm... looks like I needed a much wider pot or an Elsa with a smaller mouth. That's way too powerful! Check out the short video clip at the end of the post you'll see how strong it is...

Carbon negative cooking sized up

This is a sized up version of the Elsa stove, a prototype that I put together at Shambala festival this year. It's the biggest that I have built so far, all for recycled materials some of which I had to buy by weight at the local recycling center: it costed me maybe half euro or so... no welding, only hand tools (metal scissors and hammer). 

Carbon negative food

While camping at Shambala festival this year I tried to set up a small display for carbon negative practice. Indeed I would have needed much more time to do it properly and with a wider exposure to the crowd... but this is going to be the improvement for next year! Of course it worked and attracted the attention of the neighbors too.
 

It's been a good start...

Perfect fire vs Open fire

Here is a few shots of an interesting comparison that you can see on video too. On the left there is a small Elsa stove replica (the base is considerably shorter than it should be but that's just because of lack of rough matter to play with.

The birth of a biochar stove

Finally after long time setting things up, I was able to invest some time to make a biochar stove here in Pai, Thailand with zero material cost of course, reusing and recycling as usual... This is another small Elsa stove prototype: it works nicely producing perfect biochar in about 20 minutes process with this size, probably enough to get your carbon-negative coffee going. 

Instructions and details follow in this post, in the perspective of more extensive demonstrations and workshops here in Thailand.

Memories of a rocket stove

 The "archaeological site" of last year's festival at the Moonvillage, in Pai, Thailand. These are the ruins of a couple of rocket stoves I made about 9 months ago...

How to make an alcohol stove from an aluminum can

Here is a link to a tutorial video on how to make yourself an alcohol stove from an aluminum can. Nice video and really smart design.

New elements for the next stoves

In these days I have finally spotted some raw materials to prepare other stoves. An efficient recycling system is the basic need for creative projects, especially for those committed to "be the change we want to see in this world". Indeed a good recycling center can be just like a gold mine of... cans! hahahahaha...

Some interesting square-type big cans as well as this super lucky piece of roof gutter with a hole for the pipe, perfect to cut out the cone of the Elsa... luckiest piece ever!

The square ones are going to be the next challenge for the Elsa design... stay tuned for the updates!

An interesting discovery: my first wood vinegar

One day, after doing the usual dry quenching of the super hot biomass that I had pulled out of my biochar making stove, I noticed some sort of a stain on the floor, like a print of the container used for the quenching... but like if there was something wet. Indeed, under the metal plate that I used as a lid of the container there was some condensation. Very interesting: what could have that been??? 

Biomass test on a biochar stove

In this test I wanted to experiment on a really light kind of biomass: not sure of its name, possibly bottle gourd (ひおたん), the type that can grow big and becomes hard when dried. They didn't grow big for me a few years ago and I still have many... so I could easily fit one in my Elsa replica, together with other pieces of wood, stuffed also inside the gourd.

The stove had some minor updated, reshaping the blades on the top, now a bit more precise but it's always the same one since the beginning of this tour. 

As I was expecting the burn was not so long because light biomass goes quickly. Anyway it all went on regularly and with minimal smoke resulting in very minimal ashes at the end. The flame sometimes it's hard to see in the pictures... better in the evening but I couldn't wait that long!

...and here is the little gourd! unfortunately it cracked, but it didn't shrink so much as I was thinking. Very light biomass makes little biochar, but it's charcoal anyway and it's always good for the purpose.

A charcoal pit and a biochar stove

Here is a long series of pictures taken during a bamboo charcoal workshop held by an elder wizard during Yamauto festival 2013. The whole process is very simple and straight forward... but unfortunately it has some downsides too, in the loss of biomass, leftover ashes and possibly *very* bad emissions at some point.
Perfect opportunity to display and show my improved biochar making stove. Many people came along and were able to grasp the basic concept by watching it happen.  

 At the beginning a shallow square pit is dug out, as big as the corrugated sheet that was gathered to cover it at the end of the process. A small fire gets started in the center of the pit, using the most dry pieces first then adding whatever other pole, even the most wet ones.

As the fire grows bigger, all the humidity of the bamboo boils out in steam. Several loud sounds like gunshots happen as the bamboo sections crack open in the fire... 

We keep adding more and more bamboo, building up a quite big and hot fire. Then when every pieces is burning... we put the fire down doing the quenching by pouring various buckets of water all around the inside of the pit. 

Soon after doing the quenching we cover all the pit with the roofing sheets making sure that there is a good overlap between each piece, then sealing the whole thing with soil so that no smoke is coming out. 

So it's done! After a couple of days the heat goes down and the pit it's ready to be opened to take out the charcoal left. The soil used to seal the top could be reused (I don't know if it will though...) as well as the pit.
On the side of this ancient practice, I laid down my stove set explaining the main features and the substantial difference of approach: (1) trying to have the cleanest emissions as possible, (2) trying to reduce the ashes to zero (meaning no waste of biomass) and (3) use the energy of the process to cook or to heat water.  

My hand made Elsa-stove replica worked quite well, standing on the side of the pit attracting the interest of everybody, being obviously something completely different.

Here are some of the most keen and grateful participants of the workshop that gathered at some point maybe about 20-25 people. Thank you all for watching and putting up with my broken-japanese language and weird foreigner accent... maybe you all carry within the perfect flame of Pyrolysis!!! 

Still life with biochar: on the lower right corner the bottom of the stove is upside down, showing the hexagonal pattern that I chose to make... improving a lot since the very first test. Now getting ready for sizing it up ;)