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CLOSED Willow Charcoal

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Because willow is one of the best.

Why five pounds? That seems like an awful lot.
 
Been searching myself. That stuff on line is expensive per pound. 5 pounds will when mixed make almost 60 pounds of other consumables.
 
Cynthia apparently is getting ready to make some holy black, and charcoal is one of the three ingredients. Not all charcoal was created equal, some are better than others. Willow is one of the best.
 
As I've found out, there are many different varieties of willow. And there are even some woods better than willow, but don't recall off hand what they are.
 
Need about 5 pounds of good willow charcoal.

Looked on Amazon but finding what I need isn't working.

Figured someone here might make it. :)

No Willow around these parts.
Not used it so can’t say, but I understand cedar works real similar to willow, and was used in the past in ‘dark arts’😊
Small chunks can be made in your back yard with a metal can and camp fire in half pound lots, just like making char cloth
 
I think you wait for the sap to all go back to the roots. My mom used to cut her grapevine in the early spring, but I might be wrong and it was late fall. She'd cut it back to almost nothing, but when the grapes came on you'd never know it had ever been trimmed.

I've also heard grape makes good charcoal. I like the idea of using lumber scraps.
 
As I've found out, there are many different varieties of willow. And there are even some woods better than willow, but don't recall off hand what they are.
Black willow is supposedly the best and grape vine is a good substitute
 
One thing you need to use wood not wood with bark on , willow is easy to debark when green , grape is hard to debark ( almost impossible ,
it does make a hot fire wood but leaves a lot of ash ) ,barbeque charcoal is usually not suitable for making powder as there can be a variety of woods used .
 
and I just happen to have a grape that needs thinning

when should the wood be cut? spring or Fall?
Don't know if you have muscadines in your area, but their vines are huge and just as good as grape vines if not better. Here in my part of Alabama, We have muscadine vines as large as 3" inches in diameter at the base growing as high as 100' ft in the hardwood trees. I think they like all of the limestone outcroppings in the hills around here.
 
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