Making Charcoal and Biochar: A Comprehensive Guide

by Rebecca Oaks

Overview

Making Charcoal and Biochar - a comprehensive guide is written with the interested amateur in mind, with the certainty that anyone who has a go at making charcoal will soon get the bug. Before you know it, you will be upgrading to a shiny new retort and there will be no looking back! This book gives a wide range of possibilities for making charcoal on a small scale and for commercial production. There are chapters on the heritage skills of earth burns, the enduring popularity of metal kilns and the future represented by the charcoal retort. Biochar - or small particle charcoal - has been heralded as an ancient but rediscovered 'super substance' that can increase soil fertility and productivity whilst locking up carbon into the ground. This book looks at the ongoing discussion and weighs up the evidence. It concludes with a celebration of the myriad ways in which charcoal can be put to use.|Covering the essentials for starting a business such as legislation and marketing, there are also chapters on why charcoal is in the ascendency from the ubiquitous barbecue to the most recent research into biochar and carbon sequestration.|Winner of the Woodlands Awards 2018

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785003998
Publisher:	Crowood Press, The
Publication date:	04/09/2018
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.60(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Rebecca Oaks set up her coppice business in 1994, specialising in hazel hurdle making and coppice products. The bread and butter money though, came from firewood in the winter and making twelve tonnes of charcoal through the summer. She is co-author with Edward Mills of Coppicing and Coppice Crafts and Greenwood Crafts, both publsihed by Crowood.

Table of Contents

Dedication 6

Acknowledgements 6

Foreword Don Kelley 7

1 Introduction 8

2 How Charcoal Is Made 20

3 Earth Burns And Pit Kilns 30

4 Metal Kilns And Brick Kilns 52

5 Retorts 78

6 Bagging And Marketing Charcoal 100

7 Legislation And Regulation 118

8 Cooking With Charcoal 128

9 Biochar And Carbon Sequestration 142

10 A to Z Of Charcoal Products 154

Appendix: Comparative Table of Charcoal Production 168

Glossary 169

Bibliography 171

Useful Addresses 173

Index 175