Replying to Avatar BeeTC Bee Rancher

Permie in NW Missouri here, now have 10-55 gallon drums at home along with 10-30/35 gallon drums. Looking to make a retort or multiples. How well does this style work?

For the smaller drums, check Craigslist. The ones I got had chicken fat in them from a plant… more expensive than the 55s. Were $5ea for 55s, and I think $10ea for the smaller ones, both prices were for buying 10+ at once. Glad to have 31 acres to spread out in now…lol
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Sir Libre 2y ago

So far so good. It's kinda a pain to get everything cut up and loaded. Once the fire is going it burns for about 2hrs.

I haven't had many pieces that need to be thrown in for a 2nd burn.

I've also been using it to bbq with and it works great. I'm never buying charcoal again.

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BeeTC Bee Rancher 2y ago

Been wondering about it, as several Amish lumber mills in the area and I can buy bundles of about 1/3 cord for $5/$10 for soft/hard wood trimmings. Burned them in the rocket mass heater in our new house, and I think we spent $15 on wood this past winter. Wasn’t well seasoned though

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Jed 2y ago

Not to cut in, but I’ll cut in. Do the Amish sawmills up there have dimensional lumber at a good price? Used to be, you could get uncertified lumber really cheap.

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BeeTC Bee Rancher 2y ago

Hey, no problems! Not sure as I mainly wanted it for our RMH… never thought about buying dimensional, since we’re fairly broke after just building a house. 😱😂

We got a lot of the lumber for our house, forms, etc from an Amish lumber mill in Southern MO, last year. I think we figured even with the labor for cutting and planing some of it we still saved about $5,000 on the wood for the house, compared to buying at the big box stores.