A few months ago I wrote about the first stage of installation of my HomeBioGas system, which converts all my kitchen waste (including meat, bones and oils) to cooking gas and liquid fertiliser.
I've now had the system working for a few months now and can report its operation.
Biogas System Activation
In order to activate the HomeBioGas system you need to initially feed it 100 litres of animal manure. This gives it the bacteria and feedstock in needs to get started.
As I live in the center of Tel Aviv surrounded by office towers rather than herbivores, I was a bit worried about how I was going to get this manure.
But it turned out that there is an Equestrian Center only 15 minutes drive away. I contacted them and, after a few strange reactions, they agreed to give me as much manure as I wanted.
So I purchased five 20 litre buckets (with lids), hired a Car2Go car and went to collect the manure.
The manure has to have most of the straw removed and be mixed with water to create a slurry to feed into the HomeBioGas System.
Its a bit messy but not difficult.
Then I had to wait 3 weeks ....
Biogas Production
After 3 weeks the gas bladder was only partly full, and I was a bit worried.
But after a further 2 weeks it really started to fill up. I think the manure wasn't as fresh as it was supposed to be.
I connected the supplied stand-alone single burner biogas stove to the gas bladder, turned it on and swoosh, it lit up with an excellent flame first time.
As you can see, the gas bladder on top is now full of cooking gas.
It is making more gas than we can use at the moment.
The biogas burner produces an excellent strong flame and cooks well, even in the somewhat breezy conditions outside. I've cooked many things on it and use it regularly for pasta, which doesn't require much attention and needs a lot of heat.
I'm now considering converting the main gas burner in our kitchen to Biogas use to make things more convenient for cooking using the biogas.
Liquid Fertiliser Production
The HomeBioGas system produces a liquid fertiliser that contains many macro and micronutrients in solute form that is easily absorbed by plants.
It is much easier to use than compost - just add it 1:5 to the plant's water and apply to the roots. I'm currently using a watering can but plan on upgrading my drip irrigation system with a direct feed of the liquid fertiliser.
The liquid fertiliser even makes a nice gift to friends in recycled wine bottles.
A bottle of liquid fertiliser costs around 100 NIS ($28 or 170 Steem) at the garden shop across the road, so it is actually much more valuable than wine!
My plants seem to love it and my terrace garden is doing really well only 6 months after planting.
Signup for the Crypto Class Action against Facebook & Google's Crypto Ad Ban & support the Crypto Class Action SPS Proposal
https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/Qmd9Lme3FP2CMxtRbuQWCuiVdpWNp6EdKa5BkQ4gqRZ4mz
Wow, very interesting system. Great sustainability post! We had a relation that was using worms to do similar things with waste. They created the fertilizer with the bio mass and worm castings. Made both a solid fertilizer and a liquid. Very cool.
What's great about this is that it super easy to use and takes thing like meat, bones and oils that normal composts can't handle.
This is very cool! We have a small ranching operation. No shortage of manure
Posted using Partiko iOS
It can process up to 40 litres of manure (including up to 6kg of kitchen waste) per day.
Hello dear @apshamilton.
With a big smile on my face and full of enthusiasm, I read your post about three times.
I looked it up and down again and again, looked at the photographs, the preparation of manure, the back installation of the HomeBioGas (where the liquid fertilizer comes out), all the details.
I still feel impressed. This is simply great!
I congratulate you for making this smart choice.
Two questions for you:
Thanks for sharing.
All best, Piotr.
Hi Piotr, thanks for your lovely comment. It brought a smile to my face too. The manure only needs to be added once, on activation. After that you can just add kitchen scraps. You can also add manure or a mixture of the two.
The gas tank contains less gas than a small BBQ gas cylinder and the pressure is low so no real risk of explosion or fire.
Posted using Partiko iOS
I love to hear that @apshamilton :)
ps.
Check out my latest publication..
It brought some real emotions. I've been downvoted by over half million SP (attack of few accounts), however I also received solid support and few strong upvotes and now I will be enjoying the biggest genuine payout in my lifetime ;)
Yours
Piotr
What happens to the excess gas you can't use?
There is a valve that lets excess gas escape.
You've been visited by @minismallholding from Homesteaders Co-op.
This is great to read about it in action. I hope you remember to relabel those wine bottles. That could be an interesting wine experience otherwise! LOL What sort of price would you be looking at for this system? It's something we've wondered about of and on for a few years now, but never got past the procrastination stage.
A community marketplace of ethical, handmade and sustainable products available for STEEM, SBD (and USD): https://homesteaderscoop.com
follow: @homesteaderscoop
Yes, I'm working on a nice re-label. Definitely not to drink as a pro-biotic, unless you are a cow!
The HomeBioGas 2 costs $650. https://www.homebiogas.com/ They ship most places.
Wooow, I hadn't heard of such a contraption before this post... It's a really good concept and it's probably very popular in third word countries. It's a little expansive though... $650 is a lot of money for something like that imho, have you researched to see if there are any "do it yourself" ones online?
You could very well do a side business of selling that fertilizer to other people
I paid $1000 for the original HomeBioGas and they upgraded me to the HomeBioGas 2, which now sells for $650. You can see the huge improvement in design, simplicity and cost reduction while improving performance.
There is no way you could create a "do it yourself" version cheaper, and it would be unlikely to work anywhere near as well.
I have an appreciation for really good design and am prepared to pay for it because its worth it.
True true, good design is always worth paying, still, as a project I do think it would be cool to try to do a "do it yourself" version... The most likely scenario if I tried to do a do it yourself version would be something that leaked manure out 😅
BTW, if you want cool projects to try next that would go hand in hand with that one there is an automated home garden called FarmBot, the software is open source and you don't have to pay much for the whole thing, if you could get some BioGas generator between both system and a couple more things you could automate the whole thing and get a garden at home fully powered and fertilized by biogas
Glad to hear you managed to pick up as much free sh*t as you wanted from the equestrian centre!
Resteem to my 2300 followers and upvote!
Excelent creation !
Does it produce a stench around where you place it or does that only happen when you handle the gas bladder?
Mostly it doesn’t smell at all. When the gas tank gets too full there is an odor but it’s quite rural. Not a stench.
Posted using Partiko iOS
This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community
community witness. Please consider using one of your witness votes on us here for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.@c-squared runs a
Hi @apshamilton!
Your UA account score is currently 4.502 which ranks you at #2147 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 12 places in the last three days (old rank 2159).Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 147 contributions, your post is ranked at #73.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server
Developmental aspects then sometimes it's difficult to find the natural stuff but good to know that you've found the place for what you needed.@apshamilton, When we are covered with all
Posted using Partiko Android
Inner BlocksYou have been curated by @hafizullah on behalf of : a community encouraging first hand content, with each individual living their best life, and being responsible for their own well being. #innerblocks Check it out at @innerblocks for the latest information and community updates, or to show your support via delegation.
This promoted content generated 0.081 STEEM in curation reward payback. Thanks for using Steemium.
Congratulations @apshamilton! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPPretty well detailed coverup. Thanks !