Replies

1. 
   hammer1 | Feb 27, 2011 09:08am | #1

   Is there another way? Charcoal is partially burned wood, last I knew.

2. 
   swenson | Feb 27, 2011 09:21am | #2

   SWMBO alert

   If you make it indoors it is a very very bad idea.  It can kill you.  It is not the fire hazard.  It is not the choking fumes.  It is much worse than that.  When your long suffering wife finds that the sawdust that covers all the furniture has been replaced by soot she will throw you on the pyre and take your charred bones and use them in the grill for a BBQ block party.

1. 
   hammer1 | Feb 27, 2011 09:30am | #3

   Speaking from experience, Swenson??? LOL!

1. 
   swenson | Feb 27, 2011 09:44am | #4

   I've dodged this bullet, but have come close. Not too sure what this is about. Hate to poke fun at a new member on his first post. Making charcoal is more complicated than burning wood. It takes 4 to 10 days using one method practiced in India, and requires the limiting of air into the pile. Perhaps the question has to do with making something useful out of scraps and off cuts, I can only guess.

1. 
   joinerswork | Feb 27, 2011 10:59am | #5

   Eric Sloan in one of his books, maybe Reverence for Wood, describes the traditional method  of making charcoal.  Pile the wood in a stack with openings thru the stack for air circulation, cover the stack with earth, with limited openings for air/smoke to escape, light the pile on fire, and watch it for several days, covering or enlarging the flue opemings to limit/enhance the charring process inside.  Try not to fall thru the dirt covering the pile of smoldering wood, on a scale of one-to-bad, this would be bad. Do not uncover the ple until the charring is completely finished, and heat dissipates, as, if there is a spark remaining when you uncover the pile and allow air to hit it, it will ignite and all your work is for nought.

   In my boy scout leader days, we made char-cloth (to catch sparks for flint and steel fire-making) by cutting squares of cotton or linen and putting them into a qt-sized clean paint can, with one or two nail-holes punched in the lid.  Throw the can into a campfire, and watch it til smoke stops coming from the holes in the lid.  Remove from fire, and allow to cool.

   I imagine small quantities of charcoal could be made the same way, by putting chunks of hardwood into a gallon, or 5 gal closed metal bucket, and putting it into a fire.  Me, I would just throw the wood onto the fire, and utilise the ensuing coals to cook with right then and there...

   Ray

1. 
   swenson | Feb 27, 2011 01:25pm | #6

   The Indian Way

   When I needed tinder for flint and steel, being the purist that I am, I rinsed the leftover soap out of used Brillo Pads, dried them with a hair dryer, fluffed up the steel wool, and kept it in a little plastic box, along with my flint and a piece of steel that was shaped to hook over three knuckles for ease in striking, just the way the Indians did it. One spark into a little ball of steel wool fluff ignited after only one puff of air from my mouth. This business with paint cans in the fire is not very traditional. I just looked at a can of paint and the instructions said "Do not puncture or incinerate". So much for that.

3. 
   swenson | Feb 28, 2011 01:31am | #7

   Ray

   Digital cameras are such a part of my life that I had completely forgotten about 35mm film cans. Actually we used to combine two of your ideas by putting dryer fluff in egg cartons, adding melted wax and a piece of twine for a wick, breaking apart each egg compartment when cool and using them for fire starters during wet campouts. Since all campouts with Scouts are in the rain and mud we used them on every campout.  Rain, snow, wind and mud... those were the times with the best memories.  We always did a head count and always came back with the same number of Scouts...  not too sure if it was always the same boys we started with but the numbers were right.

1. 
   joinerswork | Feb 28, 2011 09:31am | #8

   Swen,

   One of our church members, a farmer, used to ask me whenever we got a dry spell, "Aren't you going to take your scouts camping any time soon?  We need some rain!"

   I was SM on a canoe campout when we were engulfed in the most severe thunderstorm storm I've ever witnessed.  Take-out was in a small campgound outside Front Royal, on the Shenandoah.  Every time we stayed there, we caught a thunder storm, but this one was the worst.  Standing under the dining fly, holding it from blowing away, I saw one of the boys' tents across the campsite blow into the river.  We lost three tents in the river that evening, recovered two, but all the boys were in two or three tents, and were ok.  That trip nearly finished me as SM.  Some of the most rewarding memories I have are of various experiences on BSA events, but that was not one of them. I've never been so scared in my life; not of the storm, but of the thought of facing a parent and telling her that I'd lost her kid in the river.

   Ray

4. 
   RalphBarker | Feb 28, 2011 10:00am | #9

   Thanks, Ray

   Thanks for the a-tribe-utions for all these traditional methods.

5. 
   forrestb | Feb 28, 2011 01:50pm | #10

   quick charcoal

   Talk to Jack Daniel's distillery in Lynchburg Tennessee.  I have watched them stack sticks of maple, light it on fire and control the burn with a hose.  In the end, same day,  it is ground up and used to filter their whiskey.

   Forrest

6. 
   gimmi | Mar 01, 2011 11:46am | #11

   Although the way to create charcoal is not good for the environment, but we still need it in some activities, like making a barbecue party. Many of us use gas grill , but the rest use charcoal grills. If you want to do bbq inside, ok, its better to use a gas one, but if you want outdoor grills, a charcoal one is the best idea because of the flavour it brings and the broad range of temperatures you can achieve.

1. 
   olleyhale | Mar 01, 2011 01:48pm | #12

   Thank you guys for all of your comments and gossip. I know in many countries now where they don't have electric or gas cooker, don't have heater system and stuff, they have to collect or chop down tree to burn to make fire. It is harmful to their health and the environment as well. I posted this thread after i watched a documentary movie about deforestation in developing countries. There are many things to think of other than killing the forest.

7. 
   DoninFortLauderdale | Mar 02, 2011 05:38pm | #13

   Several years ago, to (believe it or not) enrich sandy soil on property in the Bahamas I discovered that by putting charcoal and organic matter in sand you could create moderately good soil to grow vegetables.  I researched how to make charcoal on the web.  Charcoal is wood cooked in an oxygen free environment. The resulting charcoal is great for bbq and for my use of enriching soil and used to do metal work.  Here are the materials and the process:

   Materials to make 1 drum to produce charcoal: 

   1 steel 55 gal drum with a removeable top fastened with a ring and bolt. 

   3" of threaded 2" pipe

   2' of threaded 2" pipe,

   3' pf threaded 2" pipe, drill 2 rows of holes starting 3 inches from each end, 30 degrees apart.

   2- 90degree elbows and

   1 end cap. 

   The dimensions for a standard 55 gal barrel are approximately 24" in diameter x 35" long.  The top of a 55 gal drum has a standard 2" threaded opening. Position the barrel on its side so that the opening is rotated to be as close as possible to the top of the barrel. Thread the 3" length of pipe into the 2" hole, thread a 90 degree facing down, attach the 2' length of pipe, attach the second 90 degree fitting opening under the drum, attach the remaining 3' of 2" pipe with the row of holes facing the drum.  Put the end cap on the open end of the pipe.  Thus the pipe and 2-90 degree attach to the top, and form (minus the top) a wide flat bottomed "j".  I made 2 drums and one fire generates enough heat to produce charcoal in both drums.

   Build a oven of concrete blocks, bricks or sheet metal enclosing the barrels (including a top).  Position the barrels 2 feet off the ground held up with steel angle iron or scrap steel pipe.  Fill the barrels with wood, attach (seal) the top and pipe assembly.  Fill the opening under the drums, and build a fire under the barrels, replenishing the fire as needed to burn for approximately 4 hours.  The next morning, open the barrels and inside my pair of drums will be 60 to 80 gallons of charcoal.

   By building the fire under the sealed barrels, the wood inside the barrels will cook out the methane, and the methane will be forced out of the holes in the 3' of pipe under the barrel, which in turn will burn to incrementally heat the barrels.  By having the holes in the 3' of 2" pipe under the drums, no significant amount of oxygen is allowed in the barrels and you are left with charcoal.  Be sure to have the drum opening as high as possible before starting the fire.

   Hope my description makes sense........