Learn how to turn food scraps and livestock wastes into a clean, renewable source of cooking gas for your home or homestead. Biogas or methane digesters are used in rural communities throughout the world to provide burnable fuel where natural gas is either unpredictable or isn’t readily available.
Richard Freudenberger of Living Web Farms will walk participants through the process of converting kitchen scraps, garden discards, culls, and animal manures into methane-rich gas that can be used in place of natural gas or propane for a wide variety of applications on or off-grid. With every two pounds of organic material (including fats and meats), the farm’s home-scale biogas digester can produce about an hour’s worth of gas through the continuous action of anerobic bacteria, leaving behind a nutrient-rich liquid tea. By the end of the class, participants will understand how the process works, what materials are needed to produce and process the biogas, how to safely maintain a biogas system, what to expect from production throughout the year, and how to use the gas in various lights and appliances. Both commercial kits and home-built systems will be discussed to give attendees a wide range of opportunity to create their own systems.