Wood gasifier stoves

[josephcrawley]

I recently saw a guy speak about the benefits of biochar. I've been cooking on a rocket stove in the warm months but after hearing about the char I thought I should give these gasifier stoves a shot. Has anyone built here built one? Which design do you like?

thanks!

[Donkey]

Yeah.. I've built a little tin can model and played with it some.
I think they're pretty cool, personally.
So, you plan to put the charcoal in your garden? Making Amazonian Black Earth? Double cool.
Otherwise, what's yer plan with the charcoal?

[josephcrawley]

Yeah I would quench the charcoal after cooking and throw it in the beds. This guy that spoke, Albert Bates, puts his in a 55 gallon drum pees on it for a coupl of weeks and then throws it his compost pile for a few more weeks and then into the garden. He says this charges up the biota in the charcoal.

[Donkey]

Yep.. It's recommended that you put it in yer compost pile for a bit. Supposed to "charge" the stuff, though I imagine that it will charge just fine in the beds.. Depends, I suppose on the constitution of yer garden.

Oh... Cool topic, but NOT rocket stoves.

[snags]

Major reason for charging is the bio char would suck the nutrients and water out of your soil.
So to wee on it or shove it in your compost before you put it in your garden means its ready to deliver nutrients not take.

[Donkey]

Yep..
One could also inoculate with mushroom spores or beneficial mycorhizza of some sort..
If yer lucky or industrious, yer compost pile will take care of that too.

[Daryl]

What is the difference between the rocket stove and wood gasifier? They function almost the exact same way. If you take a look at the old Jetstreams, they are almost identical to the rocket stove design. The wood gas tin camping stoves are almost the exact same as the tin can rocket stoves. Is the rocket stove a horizontal gasifier hooked up to mass?

[Daryl]

Let me add that I would like to be aware of the differences because I want to combine the two.

[Donkey]

Gasifiers burn just the wood gas, rocket stoves burn the charcoal too. The feed and air-flow are set up different. Gasifiers tend to be (not 100%, some are different) single load deals, you load the stove, light the thing and that's that, gotta wait till it's done and there's no adding more.. Gasifiers typically leave the charcoal behind, which can be used in other things. I've got a TLUD that I make charcoal in for my forge, I love the thing..

[Daryl]

Great information. I appreciate it. Have you considered combining the rocket stove and gasifier? I came across the following video.  My first project is to build the basic large can gasifier.  The next step would be a hybrid similar the one in the video.

[Daryl]

I found these interesting:

[ronyon]

Ed's rocket -gasifier oven is awesome!
I would want to use the char i n a vehicular gasifier.
Even if you burned it in the rocket later, it would still be a stable,dry fuel that could be shaped into pellets briquettes or logs.
I would want a design that was insulated,could take large pieces of fuel, and had an easy way to load wood
/unload char during operation.

[Daryl]

Ronyon, I agree with you about the insulation and size.  I have already considered a square mini kiln design with airflow for the future.  I am leaning towards the Aprovecho design and long term I have always wanted a Charleston courtyard.  Well, a funky Charleston courtyard. 

[woodrascal]

I'm wanting to heat our central heating system (water based)using wood. Is there any benefit to using a wood gasification boiler instead of a well designed, decent sized rocket to heat water?

[doggy1969bc]

yes you get cole out of it that you can sequester