Biochar, and a new consultation job

Written process:

1) Get a 55 gallon drum with a hole cut on the side (like mine), or dig a cone shaped hole/trench.

2) Get a bunch of sticks/twigs, ideally the thickness of a mans thumb, or smaller. The smaller, the hotter the fire will be, and the easier it is to get a thru-burn.

3) Jam and weave the sticks into the container/pit trying to get it as tight as possible. You want as little air in there as possible.

4) Light it on fire from the top. Ideally there should be a complete surface fire from one end to the other. It will smoke at first, don't worry about that. Just keep that fire going as much as possible - you want it to get HOT.

5) Keep stacking wood into the top layer, but trying to keep the fire in the top layer. I.e. you don't want to smother the fire, and you don't want it pushing down too far into the container. You want the fire on top.\

6) As the heat drives gases out of the underlying wood, you will notice a point where the pyrolysis reaction (the fire) has a firm grip and is self-sustaining. I.e. it will keep burning what feels forever with no added wood. This is the gases being pushed out of the lower wood being recombusted.

Aside - Troubleshooting: If you start smoking a lot when you add wood, it's probably because the wood is wet and the heat is being absorbed by the water, and the combustion gas layer is temporarily not hot enough to recombust the gases. Try to add as dry wood as possible (and thin, thin sticks burn at 1200F, thicker wood burns closer to 400-500F). Get that hot gas layer hot again, so the combustion gasses are recombusted and don't exit as smoke. This is the self-sustaining reaction you need - we're not having a campfire, we're doing pyrolysis.

7) At this point, the fire will be almost unstoppable. Keep adding wood as the top layer starts to ash. Once the new wood looks like it's burning, give it a pound with a tamper and/or poke through the lower stuff with a branch trying to not disturb the top layer much. You are trying to get all those hot charcoals to fall to the bottom and increase the density of the entire pile (i.e. filling any air gaps inside the pile with crushed finished char), but keeping the fire at the top.

8) Eventually you will either run out of wood, or your container will be full even after tamping and poking. At this point, let that top layer finish combusting (wait until you start seeing ash), then FILL YOUR CONTAINER with water. I cannot overstress this. There is so much heat in here, and it's pure-fuel at this point, so if you do not SOAK IT it will re-ignite overnight, and could cause a forest fire. You want a drenched slurry . This is one advantage of the sealed drum, as the water will stay in it. If you do a cone pit method, I would recommend re-slurrying it after about an hour. Soak, and stir, and soak and stir. It should be a like charcoal smoothie.

9) Add into an active compost pile at roughly 10-20% charcoal. Make sure it spends a good 3 months inside a compost or manure mix. Alternatively you can mix in some spoiled flour, powdered molasses and water. Urinate on it (if that doesn't gross you out - and it shouldn't). The best part about charcoal is that is absorbs everything - including smells. There will be very little odor of any kind - I mean, that's what it's used for in industry after all. A filter media.

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Music credits:
Daylight by Jay Someday | https://soundcloud.com/jaysomeday
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Closer by Jay Someday | https://soundcloud.com/jaysomeday
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US