Re: Home Made Charcoal?

On Mar 13, 1:59 pm, "Gizzard" <craig...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I googled "Home Made Charcoal" and to my surprise, it appears people are
making charcoal.
Has any one tried this?
Is it worth doing?
Any how to's???

Not what you are looking for, but an observation...

When I use wood chunks in a cast iron pan over an electric skillet to
generate smoke, I cover it with a pie-pan that has a few holes punched
into it to prevent too much oxygen from getting in and causing an
actual flame. I noticed that the wood turns to charcoal in about 20
minutes, and the amount of smoke it gives off drops at that point. I
can take the cover off and burn it until it's ash (getting less smoke
from it) or dump it and put in some fresh wood. The low oxygen
environment is what changes it to charcoal. I'm new to it, but was
thinking that I should start saving these chunks for later use in the
grill, given the cost of charcoal. I intend to begin using larger
chunks to see if I get the same effect, and if so, I'll definitely
start collecting them rather than burning them to ash.

I'm not sure what's the best way to stop them at that point - dropping
them in some water or burying them in some sand. The moisture
shouldn't be a problem since it would be a while until I used the
charcoal.

I saw a show on the Discovery channel about difficult mid-evil jobs a
while back, and one of them was a charcoal maker. They would cut logs
and put them in a tight pile, then cover the pile with dirt except for
a hole at the very top. Then they would light the pile and let it
slowly burn over the course of a few days. It had to be closely
monitored because if a hole developed in the dirt, the pile would burn
to ash. Once it was finished, they would knock the pile over and
spread it out, then I think they buried the charcoal until it went
out.

--Jeff

.

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