Top-Lit Piles

My kiln was built from the plans for about $900 by a sheet metal fabricator. As my neighbor demonstrates here, this expense can be avoided, along with the time and effort of moving, assembling and dissembling a kiln, by stacking and burning the fuel, provided that water can be brought to the site. She used a backpack water pump.

When a brush pile is lit from the top, the volatile gases and smoke are consumed by the flames just as they are in a flame-cap kiln. Lighting a pile from the bottom produces smoke and relatively little good charcoal.

Top-lit piles generally yield 10% of the original volume of brush as biochar in small scattered piles, each of which may require burning separately. Kilns yield up to 30% in a single spot that can take a lot more fuel, and they avoid the work of stacking. But as long as biochar production is of secondary importance to fuel reduction, pile burning is a good alternative to kiln burning.

Note the green condition of the burning fir in the pile. Thorough drying to <20% moisture content speeds up burning and improves char quality, but it’s not essential, especially for high-resin fuels (huckleberry is another).