Manure briquettes

[Adjee]

Not sure whether this post should be here or elsewhere, I will leave that to the Mods to decide,

We are always on the look out to expand our options and explore alternatives in the way we do things.

Towards the end of last year we started experimenting with an alternative heat source - manure briquettes. The idea being to turn Horse/Goat/Rabbit manure into briquettes to burn for fuel in our petchkas and log burners. We have been using manual paper briquette hand presses to do this (I will not mention how many we have bent/broken!). The idea was triggered by a You Tube video so we thought why not try it, after all, our animals produce an ample amount of the stuff and the briquettes will supplement the wood, sunflower blocks, corn cobs, pine cones etc. that we currently use and of course being a by product it is free.

Not sure if anyone else has any experience of doing this but we have been pleasantly impressed with the end results, the briquettes put out enough heat to cook on and keep a room warm, last a decent amount of time and surprisingly produce no bad smells. I understand (from research not experience) that they burn similar to peat logs.

So we have purchased a sturdier briquette press which will arrive next month after our current main kidding season is over and when the press gets here we will start making our own fuel for use during the year.

[Medusa]

Interesting, thank you for posting this. Do you use fresh manure or do you leave it to rot for a while? Do you mix it with anything at all and do you leave the brickettes to dry out after you have made them?

[Adjee]

There is no right or wrong way to make the briquettes just what works for you.

We followed various methods/recipes from drying all the manure first, to using it straight away, adding different bindings (cardboard, straw, flour) adding different amounts of water when making the dough or slurry, even making the slurry in a cement mixer, we have tried drying naturally outside, inside a polytunnel, in our warm cellar and even in a dehydrator.

But after all that I found keeping it simple (like myself) worked best.

I use any fresh manure (horse, goat, rabbit) throw it in a large tub along with any straw, hay, wood shavings that get picked up with it (these act as a binding agent).

I then add and mix in enough water so that manure turns into a thick slurry.

This thick slurry is scooped up and placed into the press to remove water and air pockets.

I then put the briquette on a simple wire mesh frame/rack to dry. If it is warm enough they stay outside to dry (covered by a tarp if raining), if not the frame is set up in our warm cellar. They can take up to 4 weeks to fully dry but the average time seems about 2 weeks. Once fully dry I currently place them in onion nets and hang the nets from the barn beams. I will stack them on pallets and store with our sunflower bricks/logs in the warm cellar once/if the number we produce warrants it.

We have only been experimenting and producing the briquettes in limited numbers at present to see if the process will be worthwhile to continue with. The results have convinced us to carry on hence getting a sturdier press after all, the only cost to us will be the time spent making the briquettes.

I hope that helps answer your questions.

[Winterprep]

Thanks for that Adjee very interesting.

WP

[Frnc]

It's a good idea. Done around the world. But the smoke can be bad. I assume in your case it goes out via a chimney, though. There are local regulations about smoke, that vary depending on the council. But that's for built up areas.

[Adjee]

Minimal to no smoke or odour if briquettes are completely dry.

[ForgeCorvus]

Dung has been the traditional fuel in most arid areas of the world, its everywhere, its free and unlike wood theres only one other use for it.

Anything that gives a high reward for minimal input makes good sense, frugal is a prep.

[Adjee]

200 Briquettes made with batches of different mixtures using our new press. All now drying ready to be tested on our petchkas. Question is can they fully replace the wood we use? Still, all the Paulownia trees we planted are showing growth so things are looking promising. After saying that it will all go wrong! That's life as they say.