Recently we spent an interesting day working on wood gasifiers. Among our projects, a stove that gasifies woodchips using a primary and secondary air supply. The wood is partially burned with the primary air, then the gaseous products are burned cleanly using the secondary. Sound complicated? Well, it is pretty sophisticated, but Drs. Reed and Anderson have done much of the hard work for us, working out the geometries for making the stove out of “obtanium”, mainly junk. In our case, Ray mentored my oldest son, who built his stove from a large metal coffee can and a cheap stainless pot I found at HEB, plus a few other parts, like the extra top of an expensive German rainfilter which I had been saving… for this. Stove below shown with a stick in the primary air supply, to regulate it.
What in the world does this have to do with grassfed beef? Thought you’d never ask. Well, for supper we cooked 3 # of Steakburger in a cast iron skillet, with canola oil. When folks are looking for tiny bits of residual meat in the skillet, you know it was good. Served hamburger steak-style, with brussel sprouts, Ray exclaimed, “This Steakburger is better than the steaks we normally get at the store!” Nuff said!
