How to Make Potassium Nitrate from Scratch: Part One (Making Nitrified Earth)

:_Gnome:The entire video sequence is done now (check the description for links!) .. and I WILL take you from building nitrified earth to producing potassium nitrate - if you are willing to watch the process from the beginning to the end. This is a GARDENING video, and all of the work that we are doing here is to help you become a better GARDENER .. We may deal with some basic elements, like nitrate, sulfur, and carbon .. but the aim of this channel is, and always has been to help the individual in their quest for independence .. be that in food independence, or .. Well, you would know your needs better than I. Because I have NO CONTROL over what power hungry statists get elected in my area, I have been careful to NOT arrange information in a way that would be offensive to anyone except the very most ravenous of statists. All the same, I am acutely aware that political winds can change - the very fact that I am revealing how to produce certain basic chemical components from nature might be viewed as "seditious" So be it. Here is the whole of my political screed: Don't vote for the lesser of two evils. In other words: don't support evil. All of the links that you need are in the description. Don't support evil - support LIFE. Peace out.

And thank you very much for continuing my education into my apocalypse projects well technically it's pandemic but apocalypse sounds funnier

Huh, this literally used to be a side hustle for people and now it gets you on a watch list! Very entertaining, thanks!

Fyi, as one with some Exp licensing experience: you don't strictly need a license to make your own BP in respect to federal regs (though state regs are likely to have tighter restrictions). You do need a license to store and transport the powder. Basically it comes down to making and using or destroying the powder all in the same day on the same piece of land. It's for that reason that exploding targets are legal, as they use binary components and don't become regulated for storage/transport until mixed. The unfortunate truth is that despite falling within the letter of the law, making your own BP for immediate use does still have the potential to get you into an uphill battle to prove no intent to make a "destructive device" if local authorities don't like the look of what you're doing.

the saying "haven't got a pot to piss in" comes from the great depression and it means the absolute poorest of the poorest, some people would pee in pots and sell their urin for money (not sure if it was for this) and some people were so poor that they didn't even have a pot to piss in so that's where the saying is from.

were all on an FBI watchlist now

Or that Star Trek episode where Kirk figures out how to make gunpowder and that lizard guy is after him. lol

For those that holds larger livestock, cattle, goats, sheep, horses (pigs don't well for this point), you can use this to recycle the straw bedding you need to clean out of their stalls every so often. I particularly noticed this starting out with some sheep years ago, as the bedding was a layered and packed sodden mass. For this, it would be an excellent start, but as we did back then, it also worked as layer in composting. Increases pile variety, which both speeds maturity a little, and adds the nitrates to the ending mass. Also, layers of bio char(incomplete burned organic materials)and ash will give more actions to the compost, and lower the fumes quite a bit, especially the ash, as it will react with the methane and H2S readily.

:_Gnome:It is coming up on one year since I started the barrel 'o chips with the urea -> ammonia -> nitrate process, and it is just about time to see how well it went. This week, I will be getting some calcium carbonate (wood ash) while making charcoal, and next week we should be able to try a little extraction. Expect video somewhere about mid June, woohoo! :_Gardener:

So here's what Tex left off on the end of his video. He showed the startup of the whole process. What's going on is bacteria, while doing the composting, fixes the nitrogen from his urea into various forms of nitrified compounds (ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, etc) depending on the bacteria present in his compost feed stock. For the first 5 or 6 months, he 'feeds' the bacteria with the urea (his pee contains about 2% urea by weight) and he dilutes that with the bucket of water before applying). He applies the urea to the compost gradually and, over time the entire barrel becomes saturated with urea and ammonical compounds mixed with moisture - not too much moisture that's why the holes in the bottom. Also you want to use composting medium that absorbs and holds water (mix the chopped sticks and straw with the leaves) so the mixture stays kind of fluffy. You dont want your compost getting sticky or gummy. I'd suggest slowly trickling the urea water over the compost instead of pouring it. It's only 5 gallons every week. Then, over the last 5 or 6 months, no more urea is added and the composting proceeds to completion. While the composting process proceeds, bacteria favoring nitrate, no3, predominate and form that salt. Also, at the same time, the pile warms up and moisture preferentially migrates upward where it evaporates at the top of the heap/barrel. At this interface, the salts, which travelled with the moisture fall out of solution and form crystals of sodium nitrate. Potassium nitrate, actually, isn't created in the barrel, only sodium nitrate. The sodium nitrate crystals grow until they can be harvested by scraping off with an instrument of one sort or another. This harvesting process happens more easily with a harder, smooth surface, hence the topping of the pile in the barrel with soil. I'd add the soil after finishing up with the urea. You'd want the moisture migration to work as effeciantly as possible, so insulating the barrel as best as you can would help. Also, you dont want too much water travelling thru the barrel in the first 6 months because you dont want to leach out any nitrates through the bottom. Sodium nitrate is extremely soluble in water, so if you have water exiting the bottom, you can be sure any nitrate you've created up to that point is in that water. Recycling that water might be a solution to the leaching problem. Better, you add the urea and water in just the right amount to keep the compost moist, but not wet. If you're lucky and have done it right, the sodium nitrate crystals will form on the surface and you can harvest them. Sodium nitrate is hydroscopic, likes to absorb water from the air. That makes it sucky for black powder, so you want to make it into potassium nitrate which isnt. That's done by dissolving the sodium nitrate in cold water and slowly adding either potassium hydroxide or wood ashes (which are approximately the same) slowly. You'll see a white cloudy substance form in the water which is the KNO3 (it's a simple replacement reaction). Let that settle, pour out the solute (clear water portion) and discard the salt water or lye water. Then, depending on your application, you can recrystallize the KNO3 to purify it, and use filtration and settling to clear up the liquid. Look up the Foxfire series of books. In there they use cave dirt to harvest and make KNO3. They use turnips (?) to clarify the hot mixture after converting the nitrates to the potassium form. I've seen Cody's lab use gravimetric settlement in a clear plastic jug. I suspect you could find other clarifying chemicals to achieve it too. Everyone should at least try to do this in their spare time to learn how to do it. But buy your KNO3 for use now. You cant make it cheaper than you can buy it. Also, if you're interested in trying it, you should try other sources of nitrogen such as manures and animal urine. I'm also wondering about just using diluted blue def which is 32% urea. I think I'd try to keep potassium out of the compost heap to begin with (bananna peels and other high potassium plants) because if KNO3 is advertantly formed, it'll stay in place unless you wash the compost with hot water, which will result in a muddy mess.

Here is the rest of the information he is not allowed to share: The tank should have a tap installed at the bottom. After 10ish months you harvest the liquid via the tap. You boil down the liquid until it is 1/4 of the initial quantity. Dip something into the reduced liquid to see if it crystalizes. If it does, you know it is done. Next step is freezing as fast as you can. Set the container in an ice bath. Enjoy the crystals! Edit: You have to boil it with wood ash to get the stuff that cannot be mentioned. Kind of like making lye, but not.

I'd just like to point out, since Jason did elsewhere, that black powder is legal to manufacture in small amounts for purely personal use. But you have to keep it exclusively for yourself and be very careful about storing it and using it, because it is indeed an explosive and a potentially hazardous material when mixed. Personally, I'm a man of harmless curiosity and a backyard scientist. I like to make black powder just so I can light a tiny pile of it outside and watch the flames smoulder and the smoke drift around. Like my own personal fireworks (which is another hobby where homemade black powder is used!)

This was very informative! I like taking a scientific approach to gardening/homesteading. Off to watch the rest of the series!

Glad I saved this to my watch later list. You find the most interesting historical info. Good for a chuckle and more. Never boring that's for sure.

You have a very good speaking voice. You make a good narrator. I really don't know much about this subject. Ive learned something new. Thank you for explaining this. Really interesting!

Fertilizer Prices are getting outrageous.this knowledge will be invaluable.

I have made my own BP for quite some time now. Works well, and I do hunt with it. There is a lot on line for the making of BP for those that are interested.

I’m so thankful that our freedoms have not been or being infringed on because I really like gardening in the 20th and 21st century. My plants just keep producing more and more of the freedom seeds. Thank you for the fertilizer tip.👍👍👍🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸😎✌🏻

Just found your channel, I love the historical background on this! With the cost of fertilizer this is really helpful! How tos on blood meal and bonemeal would be great, too.

You must collect everything that comes out the holes in the bottom.... Line the bottom with a fine cloth covered in an inch or 2 of fine white ash.... this is your filter Collect all that comes out the bottom You can initially return it to the top. What collects below will be your high nitrate which you will refine to make black powder