Post by jkirk3279 on Dec 22, 2014 15:34:59 GMT -8
I was hoping to pitch an idea to the experimenters.
I am thinking my way through starting a business.
Growing mushrooms requires running a large pressure cooker and generating quantities of hot water to pasteurize the straw used as the “substrate”.
So of course, having studied the Aprovecho Rocket Stove, I thought about making one to run the very large pressure canner... once I get one. The “All American 941” is nice.
And having worked my way through the steps for building an Aprovecho, I began wondering if there was a way to “throttle” the heat output.
(I don’t want any “accidents” with the pressure canner.)
Well, no, there isn’t. Rocket Stoves pretty much run full power based on how much fuel you add. The best you could do is yank the burning sticks out.
Hm.
What about a “smoke barrel” ?
They’re used with your basic two Barrel stove, to get more heat out of the smoke.
I thought for a while.
Suppose you had a batch box Rocket Stove.
The exhaust can be diverted with a damper to circulate in a nearby smoke barrel and then return to the flue.
Picture it... the smoke barrel, a foot away from the 55 gallon drum batch box Rocket, with the pressure canner sitting on top of the smoke barrel.
(This would also work for making a horizontal oven if you put a 30 gallon drum inside the smoke barrel and used the standard cast-iron door for a barrel stove. The smoke heats the metal of the 30 gallon drum and thus you can bake bread in it).
The Rocket and the Smoke barrel are connected at the bottom through a “T” connection, and the common flue goes skyward from there.
And there’s a damper above that, before the exhaust from the smoke barrel rejoins the flue.
When the damper is vertical, the exhaust has little motivation to go through the smoke barrel and whisks up the flue.
Start to turn the damper horizontal, and some of the exhaust will divert to the smoke barrel, slowing down slightly. Do this slowly to avoid breaking the draft entirely.
The smoke barrel acts like an extension of the flue, and being much wider the smoke moves more slowly.
The exhaust doesn’t circulate that much, but races back out the top exhaust to rejoin the gasses going up the flue.
I THINK the Rocket will keep running. Just a bit slower.
Now; Rocket Stove exhaust is famously HOT. Even with a three barrel stack, it’s still hot, and it’s pretty clean.
Hot enough, I think, to safely operate a pressure canner at 212F.
And if you needed to quickly shut off the pressure canner, you’d just open the damper and let the exhaust go back to it’s normal path.
This is where I’d post a Sketchup file, if I was any good at that. Which I’m not.
(Edit-- I managed to hack something together)
Any thoughts?
I weld, but all I have is an AC welder and I trained on DC, TIG, and MIG.
Bit of a learning curve to re-learn starting an arc with AC.
