Curing chamber/ Kiln project

[Byronodmon]

I was inspired to start at least a quick and dirty curing slash kiln thing after it got down to 46f last night. It's still in the mid 80's to even 90 degrees in the day but it's cooling off rapidly at night. I still have a bunch of stragglers unharvested and wanted to know I could cure even if it gets cold. I wish I had the money and space for something much larger but this should be pretty good to start.

Starting materials are
1- 4ftx8ftx1inch foam insulation board $20
1- thrift store crock pot $7
2 - oven grills $1
3 - 0.75"x1.5"x8' wood $13

Hopefully it's enough wood to frame this out but I might need another piece. Not sure how I'm going to connect the oven grate inside yet either.

Anyways just sharing what I'm working on, maybe give some other new people some ideas.

 

[pottsS]

I was inspired to start at least a quick and dirty curing slash kiln thing after it got down to 46f last night. It's still in the mid 80's to even 90 degrees in the day but it's cooling off rapidly at night. I still have a bunch of stragglers unharvested and wanted to know I could cure even if it gets cold. I wish I had the money and space for something much larger but this should be pretty good to start.

Starting materials are
1- 4ftx8ftx1inch foam insulation board $20
1- thrift store crock pot $7
2 - oven grills $1
3 - 0.75"x1.5"x8' wood $13

Hopefully it's enough wood to frame this out but I might need another piece. Not sure how I'm going to connect the oven grate inside yet either.

Anyways just sharing what I'm working on, maybe give some other new people some ideas.

I don't known anything about tobacco kilns, I have made a lot of incubators like that. I have a spray foam gun and I use a lot of spray foam for gluing accessories. If you need a fan, use the biggest 12 volt fan you can get and then run it with a 5 or 6 volt charger. That slows it down and makes it more like a ceiling fan instead of like a hair drier. You probably want a thermometer/hygrometer. Hygrometers are not usually accurate, but I've found the 2$ ones I've bought on amazon that have a probe wire are really convenient and surprisingly more accurate than $40 I get at the hardware store. It seems like the crock pot would make it a bit of a cooker. My incubators I figure 15- 20 watts per cubic foot...and that is on a thermostat, that gives me a cycle rate of about half on half off when I set the thermostat to 100. I don't know much about kilns, but if you want to use it to hatch eggs in the off season I can tell you how I'd turn that into a great hatcher!

 

[deluxestogie]

use it to hatch eggs

Close! But no cigar!

 

[pottsS]

Close! But no cigar!

I've used an incubator for a vegetable dehydrator in the off season, considered using it as a pie warmer. It's good to have a use for things in the off season! But yeah, that'd be a big incubator, but a great beer cooler at the company picnic!
I should add...the quality of workmanship we see in his pics is great.

 

[deluxestogie]

With my 2' x 3' x 4' kiln, I built it specifically so that it could be disassembled with a screwdriver, and stored elsewhere when not in use. I have never disassembled it. [It has casters on the bottom. I have seldom moved it.] When my tobacco planting was in the range of 200 plants, (especially when I consumed ~6 weeks doing flue-curing in July and August, I would run it as a kiln for sequential 2 month batches most of the year, with little down time. Now that I grow about half that number of plants, the kiln sits idle for a few months—not worth the effort of disassembly, reassembly and re-taping. It just lives on my enclosed back porch.

My suggestion for kiln size is one that is large enough to kiln all of one's crop over a 12 month period. Much larger is expensive in materials and energy. Much smaller is a constant source of frustration.

Bob

 

[Byronodmon]

I don't known anything about tobacco kilns, I have made a lot of incubators like that. I have a spray foam gun and I use a lot of spray foam for gluing accessories. If you need a fan, use the biggest 12 volt fan you can get and then run it with a 5 or 6 volt charger. That slows it down and makes it more like a ceiling fan instead of like a hair drier. You probably want a thermometer/hygrometer. Hygrometers are not usually accurate, but I've found the 2$ ones I've bought on amazon that have a probe wire are really convenient and surprisingly more accurate than $40 I get at the hardware store. It seems like the crock pot would make it a bit of a cooker. My incubators I figure 15- 20 watts per cubic foot...and that is on a thermostat, that gives me a cycle rate of about half on half off when I set the thermostat to 100. I don't know much about kilns, but if you want to use it to hatch eggs in the off season I can tell you how I'd turn that into a great hatcher!

Awesome! Thanks for the information, a controlled environment is a controlled environment so the information transfers for sure.
I got the crockpot because I have seen others use them on YouTube with success. Some with thermostats others just keeping the door cracked open or some other method. I'd like to be able to keep it fully closed without having to keep it open at all for energy efficiency. Seems like the crockpot's "warm" mode does ok at keeping close to the right temperature and water in it regulates the humidity but I obviously don't know any of this for sure yet.
I'll probably take your advice on the hygrometer/thermometer and 12v fan from Amazon.

 

[Byronodmon]

With my 2' x 3' x 4' kiln, I built it specifically so that it could be disassembled with a screwdriver, and stored elsewhere when not in use. I have never disassembled it. [It has casters on the bottom. I have seldom moved it.] When my tobacco planting was in the range of 200 plants, (especially when I consumed ~6 weeks doing flue-curing in July and August, I would run it as a kiln for sequential 2 month batches most of the year, with little down time. Now that I grow about half that number of plants, the kiln sits idle for a few months—not worth the effort of disassembly, reassembly and re-taping. It just lives on my enclosed back porch.

My suggestion for kiln size is one that is large enough to kiln all of one's crop over a 12 month period. Much larger is expensive in materials and energy. Much smaller is a constant source of frustration.

Bob

I grew 17 plants this year, the goal was a bit more but some weren't successful. So it sounds like this is plenty big for what I have. I might try growing a bit more next year but I'm bumping up against my space constraints as it is.
It's 2'x2'x3'