I'm thinking about getting back into pyro on a part time basis. Simply pure pyro, and possibly some rocketry.

I'm wondering who on here makes their own charcoal. I've never been overly successful with it. Any attempt I've made at cooking willow has resulted in lot's of smoke and some slightly charred wood.

I was hoping everyone could contribute some techniques they use and/or possibly post some pictures.

In the past, the charcoal that I have successfully made didn't seem to burn very quickly. Hampering the overall reaction. I don't think surface area was a concern, because it was very fine. Possibly the duration for which the wood was cooked? The manner in which is was processed?

So I ask everyone. What is the secret to great charcoal?

Go find a willow tree... and burn the wood. James has a great way of doing it, i just dont feel like typing it all right now.

I just get my willow wood, debark it, put it in an old cookie tin (or something like that), drill a hole in the top, and stick it in the fire. When smoke stops coming out, plug the hole, and leave it until it cools.

Perfect charcoal

...geeez tommy boy ...remember when i was cooking my own ?build a fire in your firepit fill up a metal tin punch a bunch of holes in the bottom and only a few in the lid and toss here in man and cook it for a long time .... if you goto that station at what used to be the end of my road on brenner the gas station there you can pick up 5 gallon metal drums the would fit nicly in your firepit


btw when you going to come smoke that cuban with me ? im going to be a daddy now yeah hear :P

bah i gots to buy more now

Ive found soda cans make very good cooking tins for charcoal.

&uarr

Damn right.

If you get creative, you can get the top half of a pop can to fit snuglyover a lower half.

Take an old pot, put about an inch of fine sand in there, and stick in the bottem half of that can. Fill it up with bits of wood and cover with the top half.

This can be heated any damn way you want! Doesn't require open fire, so it can be done indoors, suburban, lab, anywhere! even a decent ceramic electric kitchen stove will do. A fume hood is highly welcome, but not neccessairy.

noting like making 100 grams of charcol at a time while making your house smell lke a campfire..

Or you could just burn a shit load of pallets and have a 50 gallon drum filled with wood ontop ... this way it cooks it ..

nah I don't like soda cans. I get a nice big steel container, poke one hole in it, load sticks in it and throw it on a fire. Once it stops smoking it's done! As long as you don't have too many holes in it you really don't have to worry about "overcooking" it since once its' pure Carbon it won't do jack shit unless the steel around it melts or something.

I'm going to get a large steel trash can this summer to do it in big batches. I melt metal too so I use a TON of charcoal!

I just fill up a metal cookie tin with my wood of choice, throw on the top and drop it on a fire.
It's not very complicated. Just cook the wood, without letting it oxidize, and you've got charcoal.

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Originally posted by Mokothar:
&uarr

Damn right.

If you get creative, you can get the top half of a pop can to fit snuglyover a lower half.

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Ive found this method works well: http://tinyurl.com/s72sn
No need to do anything but fill the bottom with wood, crush it and sit it inside a campfire. As long as you dont forget about it, it does a nice job.

You need to have a lot of sticks, not just a log. Put it in a tin, stab the top like twice with a knife, put in fire. When smoke starts comming out the holes, light it on fire. When the fire dies out, let it sit for 5 min, then take out. Let it sit, or when you open it it will flare up and burn. After it is cool take the chared wood out and put into ball mill.
On "Dirty Jobs" mike was at a charcoal plant... They used huge piles of wood and a shipping container.....

quote:

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Originally posted by warweed12:
...geeez tommy boy ...remember when i was cooking my own ?build a fire in your firepit fill up a metal tin punch a bunch of holes in the bottom and only a few in the lid and toss here in man and cook it for a long time .... if you goto that station at what used to be the end of my road on brenner the gas station there you can pick up 5 gallon metal drums the would fit nicly in your firepit


btw when you going to come smoke that cuban with me ? im going to be a daddy now yeah hear :P

bah i gots to buy more now

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I'll certainly make an effort to come see you over spring break, or the middle of April. The sudden good news means I've got to bring the cubans right? Damn...

Anyways, I'll certainly give the cooker on the campfire another try. In the meantime keep yourself out of trouble. I know its hard .

There should be a thread specific to the production of BP and it's components. It migh t be a good place to start considering this new pro LE initiative.

If your having trouble getting it to run to completion, try a higher temp, and smaller wood. Toothpicks would turn into charcoal much faster than a block equal in volume to 100 toothpicks.

I like old coffee cans and Al foil lids.

Or a 55gal drum and a serious bonfire.

You dont even need willow, there are loads of other good charcoals. If you are curious, get some balsa, and make charcoal. That stuff is amazingly fast. Pretty much any willow, alder, plum, whatever makes good BP. Conifers for sparks, and hardwoods for slower stuff.

[This message has been edited by Swany (edited 03-20-2006).]

I just put some toothpicks in some AL foil and cooked it with my lighter.... It was fun...

i remember on a trip back to my home town of prince rupter they had like 700 pallets and it was sea fest a celebration we have there and we were burnign tons of them at a time in the middle of the road and the ashfualt was melting tand the tar lighting on fire .. and people were getting bunred but the moral was me and a friend rolled a huge 55 gallon drum donw there and then offered to prep the fire mainly because we wanted to cook our charcol so we took 2 pallets and stacked them on top of each other put the drum on top with the holles in the bottome and then tee-pee fireded it it was about 7 feet talling pallets that was a massive fire and then some ...

How do you guys powder yours? I've got ample supply of powdered C right now, but when I needed to powder mine I didn't have a mortar and pestle so I ended up having to double-bag it in ziplocks and using it as a 'stress bag' for a week or so! It worked great though. I've heard of people using meat grinders to powder it too. One note: always wear a dust mask! and do it outside...it gets EVERYWHERE!

EDIT: on a related note, who knows what ash is, exactly? All that google is yielding is "unburnable remenants of a fire. " Well I could have said that. My best guess would be that it consists of carbonates/oxides from the minerals left in the wood. Anyone know any more?

[This message has been edited by Sentinel (edited 03-20-2006).]

use a ball mill

quote:

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Originally posted by warweed12:
noting like making 100 grams of charcoal at a time while making your house smell lke a campfire..

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Which would make a full kilo of BP, or 400g of Moko'd-H3.

It would be more like 20 grams of charcoal, (you can fit four to six pop cans in one cooking pot) but I don't want more than 100 g of H3 at one time anyways.