Burning biofuels, aka doo doo

[Squirrel Girl]

We were talking recently and the topic of burning biofuels came up. We got to wondering about, say, American pioneers who took their conatoga wagons across the prairies and burned buffalo chips for "firewood." I've always been fire-challenged and am not good at starting campfires.

Does anyone know how you light a cow chip? Does it need a lot of kindling? Does it smolder or actually burn? I guess I should have thought of this before the '88 convention when we had honest to goodness buffalo chips handy.

I figure cavers are a weird enough lot that maybe someone has tried this or actually knows the story. Or maybe they've been in the Peace Corps to Africa where it's a technique still being used.

[hydrology_joe]

When they are nice & dry, they light pretty easily. We burn off 80 acres of pasture each spring and have no problems setting old ones alight.

I have a postcard from my travels around Kansas showing Ada McColl collecting chips near Lakin, KS. Because wood was so scarce in the tallgrass prairie, chips were burned for cooking & heating by pioneers.

[Phil Winkler]

Hmmm..I've got a photo somewhere of Pual Boyer throwing a chip/cow pie at a SERA Cave Carnival in Valley Head, I think. The secret was to check each pie you found and select one fresh enough to hold its shape when compressed in your hand like you were making hamburgers. Too dry and they fell apart soon after leaving your hand.

There were judges down range to measure the landing. One guy threw one that went way furhter then anyone else's. Shortly the judge who checked it out said the fellow cheated by stuffing the chip with a rock.

Sigh...some folks ruin it for everyone, don't they?

[Squirrel Girl]

Phil, at the '88 convention, I was on the winning Speleorodeo team. Dave Jagnow used his baseball throwing skill to throw a buffalo chip WAY farther than anyone else.

Then all the buffalo chips had to be collected and returned to Wind Cave National Park to conserve their resources.

Anyway, the question at hand is, how does one go about actually using dung to burn for, say cooking, or keeping warm? Do primitive folks have a grill? What is used for kindling? Presumably they use dry stuff. Did they collect it and carry it with them while it dries? Enquiring minds want to know.

[hydrology_joe]

This is about biofuels, but not necessarily cow chips..

From the Washington Post

New Fuel Source Grows on the Prairie
With Oil Prices Up, Biomass Looks More Feasible

Anyway, the question at hand is, how does one go about actually using dung to burn for, say cooking, or keeping warm? Do primitive folks have a grill? What is used for kindling? Presumably they use dry stuff. Did they collect it and carry it with them while it dries? Enquiring minds want to know.

From what I can gather from the state's historical society folks... early pioneers collected dry chips from the grasslands and stored them under cover (to keep dry) and burnt them throughout the winter for fuel. I am assuming that they used some type of stove for this... because I don't want to know how that barbecue would taste (insert throwup smiley here)

The ones I have burnt in the pasture light very easily since they are predominantly grass. After passing through the intestive tract of a cow and baking in the sun, there isn't much moisture left in them.

[Squirrel Girl]

Yeah, the folks at work were really whigged out over the idea of "touching" dung. But I figure they're just grass with a bit of glue that when dry is not particularly noxious.

But I think other parts of the world like Africa or India, they use it to cook food, and I seem to recall reading somewhere that it does relay a taste to the food. Which wouldn't be good, but I guess if you're desperate....

[Nico]

if you burn dry cow pies the smoke keeps the mosquitoes away, believe it or not.

[cob]

, they use it to cook food, and I seem to recall reading somewhere that it does relay a taste to the food. Which wouldn't be good, but I guess if you're desperate....

Barbara, why do you assume the taste would be bad? Some American Indian tribes wold empty the entrails of a freshly killed elk and eat it like "salad".

tom

[fuzzy-hair-man]

But I think other parts of the world like Africa or India, they use it to cook food, and I seem to recall reading somewhere that it does relay a taste to the food. Which wouldn't be good, but I guess if you're desperate....

I thought I remembered a Oxfam or some other aid organisation advert telling me burning cow dung over a period of time lead to blindness (at least in Africa). It was a while ago though so I could be totally wrong

[Teresa]

Other than one has passed through a cow, and one through a swamp, I'd suspect cow chips aren't that much different from burning peat. If they are dry, both have offgassed the organic volatiles. If they are wet, they smoke and don't burn very well, anyway.

On the other hand, I cannot tell the difference between meat cooked over hickory/apple/oak/mesquite, and/or charcoals made from those woods, and some people swear they can, just as people in a forge can tell different coals apart.

Cow chips just need better PR. Likely, it would be more profitable to gather up the sludge, and capture the methane, anyway-- wish more CAFO would do so, instead of polluting the groundwater.