Making Charcoal with the Exeter Retort
By woodlandstv
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Alan and Jo Waters are expert charcoal makers with many years experience of this traditional skill from the land they coppice. Here they speak about the benefits of charcoal production using the Exeter Retort. They join with Geoff Self and Robin Rawle, designers and manufacturers of this Retort, to explain their experiences of the benefits of this method compared to traditional ring kilns - that the Retort produces more charcoal, that it has a shorter burn time, is cleaner, more efficient, easily accessible and transportable, and that it ultimately produces better quality charcoal - ideal for small woodland owners. [email protected] http://www.carboncompost.co.uk/ An Adliberate film http://www.adliberate.co.uk for WoodlandsTV http://www.woodlands.co.uk/tv
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108 comments so far
mikha007
July 5, 2019
how much wood do you burn?
Robin Rawle
July 6, 2019
@shexdensmore Nothing to it really. We just mix them with a high quality compost locally produced, wet the mix and sell it as a soil improver. It works very well. Makes me wonder what the point of adding loads of stuff to it is.
Robin Rawle
July 6, 2019
@mikha007 We certainly could. But we're doing rather more than that. We'll be taking it off, cooling it, cleaning it, storing it and running a genset/CHP unit with it. Development is happening with the help of the UK government.
mikha007
July 7, 2019
@Robin Rawle id like to know more on how you store it ..or is that a secret?
Robin Rawle
July 7, 2019
@mikha007 No secret. This is the second project, the first being a proof of concept vehicle. Publicly funded so in the public domain. Storage is in large rubber gas bladders also used for biogas. They're cheap, tough and self inflating.
Robin Rawle
July 7, 2019
Missed this one mikha007. The retort chamber takes 1.6 cubic metres, all of which gets pyrolysed. To start the process off you need between 70-100kg of waste softwood. The amount of initial fuel varies on the wood or other material you have in the retort chamber and its moisture content. Something like reed needs barely 20kg of waste wood to convert.
mikha007
July 7, 2019
@Robin Rawle so 1.6 cubic meters per 900kg…that seems a lot
Robin Rawle
July 7, 2019
@mikha007 Not sure I have made myself clear. You can convert 1.6 cubic metres of wood (about 900kg with hardwood by the time the air space between wood pieces in the retort chamber is accounted for) for an initial fuel component of waste softwood in the firebox of perhaps 100kg to get the feedstock in the retort chamber up to retorting temperature.
mikha007
July 8, 2019
@Robin Rawle ah ok
Chris Lassaline
July 13, 2019
Loved it!