Making charcoal

Notice that these larger diameter logs are able to carbonize/pyrolyze completely without leaving brands because they were cut into short pieces. Moisture and gases come out of the end grain many times faster than through the sides of logs. If making engine fuel instead of barbeque fuel, longer pieces should be split to 2 inch diameter.

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That’s about the way I would have done it too. I wouldn’t have thought of the jack though. I’ll have to remember that one. Thanks.

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There should be a thread titled “ingenious machines” just for this kind of thing. It would be my first look of the day.

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it works ok i started with trying to do the belt setup with a 12 hp but the engine gave out and the spindles was shot so i gathered scrap i had one thing thats a problem is vibration but that could be from a bent shaft these are second hand engines the other issue is the engine speed i thought of a belt between both engines to aid the other to prevent stall out i was thinking about splitting 1 carb for both engines perhaps i could run both engines on charcoal then i could mow more but im not quite sure how to go about it im still working on the onan genset gasifier but maybe small engines would be a way to get my feet wet the onan is fickle on gas so charcoal might be even more difficult how would you connect a gasifier to both engines and keep the speed close to the same its a pita on gas because one stalls out and one sips gas while the other drinks it lol i think one engine might be bigger im not sure

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I’ve made an oven full of charcoal by getting a roaring fire going and loading the oven, letting everything burn for about 20 or 30 minutes, then closing the door, and pushing bricks again the door to seal it. I waited three days before removing bags and bags of charcoal. Opening the door to early will regenerate the fire. I usually read the new tricks and search for new pages. thebarbec has really amazing content i have ever seen. Lots of grilling and bbq help is here. The next time you fire the oven, heat hot enough to clear the oven of all the carbon coating.

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Interesting! How did you make charcoal in your oven? Can I find that on the link you gave us?
My neighbor let me cut all the dead wood off his apple tree, so now I have a little pile. I have figured out how to make charcoal in a TLUD (Top Lit Up Draft). For the bbq I just use something I made out of coffee cans. But for my forge, and other things, I make charcoal in an old hot water heater tank. Produces about 35 gallons at a time.
Rindert
DSCN3214DSCN3221DSCN3306

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Making charcoal
Bob

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Making some charcoal in the barrel burners (flame cap method).
Experimentally charing green, sixth month old chestnut, cut from a log, in one barrel and the limbs in another.
charing green wood

The log chunk barrel is half full after six hours.
The limb barrel is 2/3 full after four hours.
Both required five gallons of hot charcoal fire to get started.
It can be done, I’ll leave it to you to decide if it ‘should’ be done:)

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Chestnut is THE WORST wood possible for making charcoal. Or firewood for that manner. A neighbour of myne aproached me and sayd he has some dead standing chestnuts and he heard oldtimer blacksmiths preffered its charcoal. He figured it shuld be great for BBQ too… well, we loaded my kiln and after heating it all afternoom and evening, the damn thing still wuldnt start! It was 3am and a couple of beers later we gave up and went to bed. When examining the cooled kiln, most wood was still intact! The few sacks of charcoal we did get was absolutely awfull as bbq charcoal. Wuldnt burn. But what l found super interesting is that some peaces of charcoal had a yelow needle like crystals over them, specialy between the bark and wood. They werent small either, clumps a few mm large. What that was is a mistery l wuld wery much like to find out. Tanins? Sulfur? God knows…
I later learned why the chestnut char was preffered for blacksmithing exactly because of this. It doesent like to burn. When forced air was cut from the forge, the coals wuld dye out instead of smoldering to ashes. Ready for next time. Economical. Kinda problem for bbq thugh :smile:

Oh, lm not saying its bad gasifier fuel thugh. Probably just as good as any

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That charcoal looks like engine grade charcoal to me and a good job on using the heat in a home. Now wood chips have become very easy and good source of fuel for engine gasification
Bob

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Most likely chesnut blight. It is the disease that wiped out the chestnut trees. You should throw that in batches of char just to kill the fungus. It is actually safer then an open fire.

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Result of charring green chestnut from a few posts up (I know you were dying to know):slight_smile:
https://youtu.be/crDy3sCmodY

The charcoal is a lot more dense than fir/hemlock, and surprisingly low ash content. Haven’t gasified it yet.
I like the idea of taking something of low value and turning it into light, heat, hot water, and whatever else that might be beneficial to life and living.

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Today i was putting the finishing touches to the number 2 Gasifier replacing the hopper and gaskets and the level switch for the auger feed , i then needed to empty the filter can and clean that up .when opening up the filter i took the steel perforated screen out to reveal a layer of fine charcoal as i dug down layer after layer getting bigger and bigger till i cam to the bottom 3rd of the can that was filled with larger chunks of charcoal maybe around engine grade size and a little larger , the thing is it did not feel like charcoal now over the years i have made a LOT of charcoal many different ways but never have i come across this dense and heavy chunks , at first i though maybe it was BBQ lump charcoal that’s been reduced in size but no i manage to snap apart every piece to reveal a very shiny surface 100% charred no volatiles in this at all in fact i lit the small Barbie with it and cooked some sausages on it and it burns long and slow now that’s not all when i was scooping out all the very fine charcoal layers moving up to the largest in size my hands were clean and no dust what so ever its the weirdest thing i have ever come across , i hope i can get in touch with the guy i bought these gasifiers off and ask him where he got this charcoal from , in the mean time have a look at the photo’s of it ,maybe Kristijans charcoal is similar i am not sure






Dave

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We had a slash pile, that was supposedly extinguished in April, re-ignite in September. It had been checked multiple times and had no evidence of life. We discovered in during the Camp Creek fire which was four miles from the house here in Oregon.
I don’t know what the lesson is, but it seems like there should be one.

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