In the continuing saga off no-smoke charcoal making, I’ve added air injection to the system.
In recent runs, I could tell the fire wasn’t getting enough oxygen. There were a couple reasons I knew this.

when running just the stove, I got a red jet flame out of the top. A picture from a previous post:
If […]

actually this is take four.

exit hole on top. Mistake. lots of uncombusted smoke

exit hole on bottom. Better, but still lots of smoke

pipe extention to inject smoke into the heart of fire. That worked, but the ducting I was using still leaked smoke.

today’s experiment

Somehow, the thought of using an old paint can came to mind. I […]

When wood burns, what’s really going on?
As I understand it, it’s a 2.5 step process.
1) Heating the wood causes it to vaporize into its component molecules.
1.5) depending on the temperature, the longer, more complex molecules decompose into simpler molecules. Larger molecules don’t burn as well. Axle grease doesn’t really burn. Gasoline does. If you heat […]

I took some more pics of my stove in operation. I just love how the flame jets around. I also have some pictures with Grady for scale.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how wood burns. It started when I read a post on the blog The Oil Drum when someone posted an opinion that instead of turning celulose into alchohol, we should just burn it by gasifying. As I understand it, when you heat wood, it gives off gases that will burn. […]