Charcoal

deerstalkert as above post advised me on the willow for charcoal. Trust his advice and trust me when I say the results of using charcoal have been VERY good. Easy to find along wet areas and peels easy. You would not be disappointed.

I've been using cedar fence pickets from Home Depot for my charcoal. One four dollar picket will fill a one gallon paint can twice and makes a good bit of charcoal. I bought five pickets today because I think they'll soon stop having the fence pickets in stock over the winter.

mmb617 said:

I've been using cedar fence pickets from Home Depot for my charcoal. One four dollar picket will fill a one gallon paint can twice and makes a good bit of charcoal. I bought five pickets today because I think they'll soon stop having the fence pickets in stock over the winter.

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Do they have a greenish tint from being treated with rot resistant chemicals, or are they plain wood?

LD

I ;have been through many charcoals and done many tests, trust those that say willow.

Question about using Grape Vines to make Charcoal. My Son bought a house that has thousands of Concord Grapes in the back yard and they are all overgrown. They are delicious and he wants to get a bigger yield to make Wine. I offered to go help him prune maybe in winter when I have time to drive down and run a extention cord for sawzall out to the Grapevines. Was thinking about transplant some. but did not know about making charcoal out of them. How do you do it? Does it make tasty Burgers on the grill?

Loyalist Dave said:

Do they have a greenish tint from being treated with rot resistant chemicals, or are they plain wood?

LD

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They are plain cedar, or at least I assume they are. The whole idea of using cedar for fence pickets is that it is a naturally rot resistant wood. What I do know for sure is that they are working well as the charcoal component of my powder.

I know everybody says willow is the best and maybe it is, but for my purposes these fence pickets are easily obtained, inexpensive and they work. I hope to soon get some chrono work done so I can compare my powder to commercial. Seat of the pants tells me it's close to as powerful and I'm not having any ignition issues or hangfires.

I had originally ordered some willow lump charcoal online but other than an acknowledgement of my order being received I've heard nothing from the company and it's been 3 weeks, while the initial email said 1 to 2 day prep time before shipping. I even sent an inquiry about the status of my order a week or so ago but got no response. That's what prompted me to start making my own. Now I'm glad I did as I don't need to rely on any vendor for my charcoal.

Good charcoal is wood heated to 350 deg. Fahrenheit. Will contain enough organics remaining that it burns a little bit moist.
Store-bought charcoal briquettes tend to have carbon from coal or oil added, which brings in sulfur.

Wondnt a lot of Sulphur be a Good thing to make what your making? It does act as lubricant in Diesel Fuel. making everything burn better

I'm getting ready to make some from Tulip Poplar and give it a try. Willow works very well but I have tons of TP...

TheBoat said:

Wondnt a lot of Sulphur be a Good thing to make what your making? It does act as lubricant in Diesel Fuel. making everything burn better

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sulphur in ecxess will just cause terrible fouling. sulphur is one of the fuel's and lowers the ignition temp of the compound. the optimum mix was established before even i was born and i am older than dirt!

Be careful if you try using framing wood or lumber from HD or Lowes etc. Most commercial wood has preservatives in them that will give off dangerous fumes when burned. Soft woods are the best for making the kind of charcoal we are talking about. Willow or grape vines are considered by most to be the best of all.

I am old. when I was young an old man told me...take willow limbs and peel them put them in a paint can that is clean and seal the lid. Put it in the oven at 350 degrees. How long is something you discover by trial and error and the indicator was the willow branches still looked like willow but were easily smashed into powder with the fingers. He also said old stale horse urine was the best liquid to make the mix. Never had a horse and willows were not easily found so I never tried it but he was correct about so much more that he taught me I believe it would be a winner.

Alder, willow and tree of heaven are all good woods to make charcoal with. Anyone with experience making char cloth in a lidded can can make it. Have genus and species of tree of heaven somewhere. Alnus and salix are genera for the first two. Few species of alder but hundred or more of willow.

Grape vines were made into vine charcoal for artist's for drawing. We tried smoking them in Boy Scouts. Not good.

JCKelly said:

Good charcoal is wood heated to 350 deg. Fahrenheit. Will contain enough organics remaining that it burns a little bit moist.
Store-bought charcoal briquettes tend to have carbon from coal or oil added, which brings in sulfur.

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That's a new one for me JC. But you learn something every day. Can you "overcook" when making charcoal for our purpose? When I make charcoal I let it go well beyond the outgassing process. The completed product does not retain it's original shape, but kind of breaks itself up into smaller pieces.

muzzlediscipline said:

I am old. when I was young an old man told me...take willow limbs and peel them put them in a paint can that is clean and seal the lid. Put it in the oven at 350 degrees. How long is something you discover by trial and error and the indicator was the willow branches still looked like willow but were easily smashed into powder with the fingers. He also said old stale horse urine was the best liquid to make the mix. Never had a horse and willows were not easily found so I never tried it but he was correct about so much more that he taught me I believe it would be a winner.

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When I was young ,About 80 years ago ,the local Itenerate blacksmith always collected Entire horse urine as he said it was the best quenching fluid you could find.High in Salt & Nitrogen. The old shepards hut he lived in..(We always quenched our scraper blades in saline when I worked for CINCINATI in Brum.) OLD DOG..

In the iron furnace days here in Central Pa. , 1850 and forward, it was well known that Willow made the best charcoal.

I watched a "How It's Made" show that had a segment about the Kingsford plant, they put lime in their charcoal so it turns white when it burns to let you know when it is ready to cook on, it also has a high percentage of coal in it.

Semisane said:

That's a new one for me JC. But you learn something every day. Can you "overcook" when making charcoal for our purpose? When I make charcoal I let it go well beyond the outgassing process. The completed product does not retain it's original shape, but kind of breaks itself up into smaller pieces.

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Somewhere, several somewheres, you will find it written that very high quality "propellent" leaves a slightly damp residue/fouling. None of the three ingredients, if pure, will make H2O when combusted. But charcoal, if not charred too hot, still contains some organic matter that will form water/H2O when combusted.

The other thing is the last three decades of my working life I became more or less the planet's "expert" (don't care for that word) in the uses of nickel-chromium iron alloys for high temperature service. Usually that means from about 1100F up to maybe 2200F (white hot). I got all the incoming phone calls about anything technical. So one day I got a call from a South American maker of charcoal. Could our most common heat resistant alloy, RA330, be used for a container in which to make commercial charcoal? Sure, it is just right. By the way, how hot do you heat the wood? Oh, 350F (177C).

So, hey here is a commercial charcoal maker who for whatever reason uses just 350F to make the black stuff he sells.

I told him RA330 was far more alloy (34% Ni 19%Cr &c) than he needed and he'd save money by going to just plain old 18Cr 8Ni stainless, type 304. Actually I hope he stayed with RA330, but based on what he told me didn't think he needed the more expensive high nickel alloy.

After a couple decades reflection I think he was right to use RA330. Customers usually knew their product's temperature precisely but with respect to the process equipment they tended (tend) to be off by 500 or so degrees.

JCKelly said:

Somewhere, several somewheres, you will find it written that very high quality "propellent" leaves a slightly damp residue/fouling. None of the three ingredients, if pure, will make H2O when combusted. But charcoal, if not charred too hot, still contains some organic matter that will form water/H2O when combusted...

...So, hey here is a commercial charcoal maker who for whatever reason uses just 350F to make the black stuff he sells...

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Willow is essentially nonexistent in my neck of the woods. I don't recall ever seeing one growing out in the wild. The ones I've seen were planted as ornamentals around someone's pond or creek. Bush honeysuckle on the other hand, is literally everywhere around here. Although I've done no scientific comparisons between the two, they strike me as being very similar and I'm thinking of trying the honeysuckle to find out. Has anyone else tried this stuff? By the way, this is not to be confused with vine honeysuckle. Here's a link to Bellarmine University's web page on our local variety: Bush Honeysuckle