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Alison Benitz
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- Republic, WA
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- What do you have to say about Dave's book "Alcohol Can Be A Gas"?
- This book got me really excited about being self-sufficient. I also purchased books on Permaculture!
- About Me:
- Home schooler, looking forward to starting a new home stead, grow herbs, veggie garden, make my own dairy products, fuel, and fish!
- I am located in:
- Washington
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We ran outta money and jobs are hard here. We don't have a well and the truck broke down so we weren't able to haul the water our garden needed, consequently, it didn't do very well and we were not able to get as far as we had hoped. But, it's just our first year and Rome wasn't build in a day, either, or a year, as the case may be. The good thing was, we didn't have water and found out what did best under those conditions.
We had planted some Jeruselem Artichokes, Sweet Sorgham, and Fodder Beets, which were the three most alcohol producing plants we wanted to try (aside from the cattail).
Here's what we found... the SS and FB need more water than nature provided. The SS grew to about 3 foot tall, the FB didn't grow at all, but the JA did very well and are about 5 feet tall. We'll be harvesting the tubers soon and find out how they did. We didn't get to harvest any cattails. But, Alan's been digging through them (to open the pond) and he said some of the tubers were HUGE. We'll definitely try them next year, maybe even this fall, if I get the chance. He's leaving for Alaska again, so I'll be doing another winter with just me and the kids.
As for actual alcohol production, we just started some small scale stuff, using some brown sugar (we just wanted to start, if you know what I mean.) Out of about 4 gallons of mash we got about 6 qts of 130 proof alcohol. We haven't run anything on it, yet (of course, it's not high enough). When we do, we'll probably start with the generator.
In general, we're still experimenting and things are going slowly. I'm disappointed, of course, that we didn't get further, however, I'm really glad that we had the water problem when we had small scale "experimental" plots. Next year, we'll try the FB again, as well as the SS, but we'll plant A LOT of JA.
We did manage to acquire some things that we'll be able to use for the year round green house, but were unable to get the green house itself up. No worries, though, we're closer. Next spring, Alan is hoping to put in a "normal" toilet into the cabin and, instead of a septic, run into his holding tank to start his methane production.
We also found out the animals are probably too expensive to have unless you can feed them on mash. We're down sizing our poultry and waiting on pigs.
Guess that's it for now.
Thanks
John
As for your questions...
>>what are planning on heating your still with?
We are still hashing that over for the long term solution but we plan to start with a wood fired oil heater and use the hot oil to heat the boiler for the still...
>>Also, is it up and running?
No...I sold my first set up and am building a larger one...we are still building our 450 gallon boiler and will not be up and running till sometime this summer or fall...We are building a large set up so we have some special challenges and higher costs...We want to run big batches less often...also all my partners have pulled out now that gas is cheap again and the economy is down so I am footing the bill on my lonesome once more and this has slowed my progress...
>>Are you planning on using any of the hot water, from the still, for the farm?
Yes, we want to re-use the water for fermenting and preheating with heat exchangers you can use the heat in the water for all kinds of stuff even heating your buildings...the less heat wasted the lower your costs...we want to build an underground storage for hot water we can run heat pumps off if we ever get that far...
>>Do you have a hammer mill or shredder to process your cattails? Not yet we have tried several that did not work well and are still looking for one that will process them without plugging up...we have not tried any expensive ones and all the cheap ones we have tried plug up or do not process down to the size we want...we would like to process rhizomes down to 1/8 inch size...I have seen a few that I am pretty sure will work well however for the amount we need to process the cost will be over $5000.00 for a used one if we can find it...a new one like I want to try is about $15,000.00 so I am looking for a used one...I am looking for a shredder...I am also considering just slicing the stalks and using an osmosis process for a sugar batch a couple times a year...I think in the long run this would be a great solution and if you have Daves book the process is described in there...
>>How are you digging them up? I chose my place to do the project so have kind of unique site...many of my cattails are growing in soil that is sub-irrigated (the cattails are not standing in water) I have been able to use a 4 wheel drive tractor with front loader to harvest all I have dug so far...we plan to build special sifter bucket for this purpose at some point...the ideal tool for this would be a mini excavator...with a custom bucket! however equipment costs can get quite out of hand in a hurry on a cattail project...a mini excavator can run you 25,000.00 used! it would take you a while to recoup that cost so you will want to find a way to do it that you can afford...the first ones we dug with a 55 gallon drum pulled behind my truck on a long chain...I carried the drum out into the cattails with chain attached to a hole near the top...sat on the side of the barrel for down pressure and my brother drove the truck...It worked but was slow going as you had to sort through the barrel of muck to get your rhizomes by hand...also the ground has to be soft for this to work...some of our cattails were in soil that was to firm and the barrel skidded over the top of them...something along this line will work well enough to get you going...
The correct answer to these questions for you will depend on your site, size of your still, and your project goals...each ethanol project is different and cattail processing is not the easiest choice for biomass...bottom line is I am learning as I go as I have found no one doing this to learn from...automation costs money...hand work is cheap but very time consuming...(not to mention hard!) I do not want to spend all my time working the plant I am taking longer to set up because I want a more automated process so I can spend less time running it and more time using the fuel! My project is a long term one and I am focused on certain goals that will take much longer than just setting up a small batch plant to make fuel...I am building a small ag project around the still so have had much more to consider than just making fuel...
Hope all this helps...
I will share anything I can as I begin to process cattails this summer...
I am close to 200 miles south of you in Othello...We have about 6.5 acres of cattails we would like to develop into fuel crop...details on how to do this are scarce I have come to the conclusion that doing it is going to be the only way to get any detailed data on how to do it...
I plan to detail my cattail experiments on a website once I get going so anyone who is interested in the process can have access to what I learn...
I have found details on how to use cattails very hard to come by in any detail in anything I have purchased or found on the web...I will keep the group up to speed as I move forward....