Making Spent Coffee Grounds Into Charcoal For Terra Preta?

[maikeru]

n/a

Edited August 24, 2012 by maikeru

[Michaelangelica]

TP needs organic matter and from memory coffee ground are a good fertiliser.

 

I suppose you could put them in the oven next time you do a roast or bake a cake?

Or perhaps on the BBQ?

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

I'm a coffee addict. I drink a couple espressos a day,

That's NOTHING!!! I go through Four pounds of grounds (dry weight) a week AT HOME!!! That doesn't include at work, on the road and at resteraunts... Total daily consumption around 4 litres and change, If I'm home all day more!

 

Put 'em on foil and let em hang out in your broiler or put em on a microwave safe whatever and nuke em to char.

[freeztar]

Total daily consumption around 4 litres and change, If I'm home all day more!

:doh: :hihi: :hihi: :eek:

 

I think I would be shot into orbit if I drank that much coffee in one day. :hihi:

 

Have you considered charring the grounds DD? If not, do you throw them in the garbage, or the yard?

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Now That I've finally defeated a patch of back yard (I destroyed my plow and nearly killed my rototiller) I've been bagging them for mixing in to feed tastey goodies soon to be planted.(I wonder if my veggies will be caffinated:))

[Moontanman]

Hey, you could grow earth worms with the grounds, even rolly pollies. Great fish food, fish bait, or earth worm castings for plant fertilizer.

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

I think I would be shot into orbit if I drank that much coffee in one day.

I think I would slip into a coma if I didn't:hihi:BTW I don't do sissy regular strength...It's thick and jet black (think Guinness).

even rolly pollies. Great fish food,

I wonder.... do Oscars like rolly pollies?

[Moontanman]

I think I would slip into a coma if I didn't:hihi: I wonder.... do Oscars like rolly pollies?

 

All fish that can swallow them love Rollie Pollies. Coffee makes me burp.

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Coffee makes me burp.

Me too:hihi: Dad has it better but those around him have it worse:hihi: "it was the dog!"

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

maikeru-Is that your puppy in your avatar? Sure is cute:)

[InfiniteNow]

As other Hypographers might know, I'm a coffee addict. I drink a couple espressos a day, and this leads to a lot of spent coffee grounds. Usually I get a bag or two of them per week. Most of them have been going into my house plants or outside to feed the fruit trees, but I notice they can take a while to decompose. I also use them in potting soil mixes. I was wondering if I could do something more constructive and helpful with them...like making them into charcoal. Coffee grounds are already halfway there--they just need more roasting. Without burning my house down or making my neighbors call the police or fire department on me, are there any safe and relatively easy ways I could convert my coffee grounds into a small amount of charcoal? I can also get additional coffee grounds from my local Starbucks. I've been doing that recently for my gardening outside.

 

If I don't reply to this for a while, I apologize. Will be on vacation for a few weeks. I'll read and answer as soon as I get back.

 

 

Guys,

 

While I, too, enjoy a kick *** cup of coffee and really love espresso, your hyper caffeinated banter is distracting from a serious response to maikaru's question. It's a question to which I'd also like an answer, since it's one that I've not yet encountered in the terra preta threads, and I find it incredibly interesting.

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Infinitenow-It's a question to which I'd also like an answer,

 

[see below]

Moontanman-Hey, you could grow earth worms with the grounds, even rolly pollies. Great fish food, fish bait, or earth worm castings for plant fertilizer.

And

-D.d.-I've been bagging them for mixing in to feed tastey goodies soon to be planted.(

And

Freezy-Have you considered charring the grounds DD?

And

-D.d.-Put 'em on foil and let em hang out in your broiler or put em on a microwave safe whatever and nuke em to char.

Microwaves do an excelent job of charring things and require less time and energy than an oven to do it...And using your broiler instead of trying to bake the grounds yields results faster. Of course there are solar alternatives.

 

maikeru- I was wondering if I could do something more constructive and helpful with them.

Mixing them into your soil is very useful and constructive

especially if your's is anything like mine. It needs all of the softening up I can give it and grounds definitly fit the bill as a soil additive for the job as they fill the clay and prevent it from turning back to a concrete like substance.

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

I really don't understand how charring things HELPS the environment...Charring things CREATES Co2 and destroys otherwise useful nutrients...is it really any better than composting? (both produce waste Co2 AFAICT)

 

BTW Infinite The post above was just to show you we were sneaking a few helpful tidbits in there;) But yeah we were getting just a little unruly:hihi:

[InfiniteNow]

No worries. Thanks for the helpful synopsis.

[freeztar]

I really don't understand how charring things HELPS the environment...Charring things CREATES Co2 and destroys otherwise useful nutrients...is it really any better than composting? (both produce waste Co2 AFAICT)

 

When something decomposes, the carbon is recycled back into the environment. With char, the carbon is locked in and stays in the soil for thousands of years, effectively taking it out of the carbon cycle. This reduces the amount of carbon available for CO2 production.

[maikeru]

n/a

Edited August 24, 2012 by maikeru

[greenkira]

Well, this is a speculative post since I don't really have the means for my own terra preta experiments right now, but here's some ideas.

 

You could probably just put the grounds on a cookie sheet and roast them in the oven until they get crispy. Roasted beans are pretty close to being charred to start with. Drying the grounds on a cookie sheet before trying to char them would be a good idea anyway.

 

You could put them in a tin can and put it in a bonfire, in the coals when you barbecue, or possibly in one of those little biomass gassifier stoves. Aren't some of those basically one can inside another can?

 

But what I think might do the closest to real terra preta would be to get some oven bake red clay, that cooks around 350 F, and mix the dried grounds with the clay so that you've got as little clay holding the grounds together as possible, make a bunch of little beads or tabs, and cook those up. Doesn't have to be in an oven, you could build a fire around them and just make sure they get some good time in the coals (an hour at least). Then you've got mixed biochar and porous pottery.

 

Once you've got that, you could treat it with just about anything liquid - compost tea, urine, fertilizer, or mycorrhizal inoculation like MycoGrow. I saw some pictures of chunk charcoal that had been thoroughly colonized by mycillia, soil fungi that help root growth, so it makes sense to me to give it a good start like that.

 

Hmm, one more idea based off of a video I saw on greenpowerscience - you could also put grounds, loosely - maybe with some scrunched up paper to provide air pockets- into a clear glass jar and hit it with a fresnel lens. Those things look like so much fun! The jar might explode though and you can burn yourself fairly badly with one of those lenses, but hey...