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Three Extruder Machines are in the House!

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This took forever to actually come to fruition but persistence payed off and they guy finally sold them as he promised last spring..

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The machine at the rear with the orange top has only produced 5 tons, the middle machine has never even had a motor bolted up to it.. the front machine has only been set up.. They are all dirty with charcoal dust but we're now set up to produce lots of charcoal if sales lead us down that road..

As I've explained before the problem is that the producers of the carbonized shell are all simple villagers who have no idea what they are doing.. Mostly just burning down shells to carbonize in 55 gallon drums and then covering to extinguish. They always under-carbonize because they do not want the material to become too fragile because smalls (which are easily mixed with impurities) sell for less and of course they sell by weight. Most comes in between 12-25% ash but it's also common to see still brown un-carbonized pieces. This is why all the producers of coconut shell charcoal in Asia's quality is so inconsistent.

My plan is to re-heat/re-carbonize the shell to guarantee I've burned off most of the volatiles and to get a product with about 4% ash. I'll definitely loose charcoal doing this but it's the only way to make a premium consistent/uniform product. I'd love to be able to start with fresh shells but the transportation would be be cost prohibitive as the carbonization process reduces volume by about 70%.. Would not be very green either.

My hammer mill and ribbon mixer are being made up as I type..

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Re: Three Extruder Machines are in the House!

Dennis:

This looks very promising! Now, to get to the uncomfortable practicalities. I recall a post in which you deplored the fact that it was nearly impossible to ship the charcoal that you already had on the dock. I believe you mentioned some flats of charcoal that you could not ship. I am not trying to pour cold water on this. I am merely curious. Has the shipping problem been overcome, or do you expect a resolution in your (our) favor soon? Thanks.

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Re: Three Extruder Machines are in the House!

The extended slump in the economy resulted in the shipping companies taking 10% of their fleet out of service and slowing down the ships by a couple of days to reduce costs. This resulted in all the ships being overbooked.. So then they increased the rates of course and started taking boats out of mothballs as not to leave money on the table.

I'm pretty sure we'll be full fleet in no time.. One 40' box now costs over $6,000 landed west coast.

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Re: Three Extruder Machines are in the House!

So does this mean I can start using the 9 boxes I have in my garage as I'll be able to replace them?

Break um open... Have a party!

Is it wishful thinking to believe that some of this 'KK Gold' will be your Feb 2011 container?

Regardless, I want in on being in the queue.

No my hammer mill and ribbon mixer components are still in the shop being made up..

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Re: Three Extruder Machines are in the House!

@Dennis:

You mentioned mid-Spring as a possible target date to ship out your first pallets of extruded charcoal. I know you are busily cranking out siblings for Mable, but mid-Spring is about three weeks away. Are we any closer to getting our hands on some of the good stuff? Paswesley

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Teaser.. Please excuse my being remiss about posting teasers.. Argh.. Nothing has been easy on this project.. the charcoal produced by the extruders was not dense enough to carry the Komodo Kamado name.. so I cut them up and rebuilt them with new extruder screws flown in from Thailand. But the end result is absolutely the most beautiful extruded charcoal I've ever seen.. What ya think?

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