Giorgio, our American friends call softwoods anything with needles - conifers. Trees with leaves are all called hardwood wich l find a bit strange since many conifers are “harder” thain say willow or poplar.
Interesting, l also have most of my oaks like that. Called Cer here, or Dob. Like you describe, quite useless. Will rot sooner thain beech or spruce. I let a log for 6months on the ground and it was alredy rotten. Made indoor stairs out of it thugh, looks nice. Its just not for the outside.
The wood of the cer tree species was used by our ancestors to cover the floor in the stable or piggery, if it is always soaked with moisture it lasts a very long time. We grow quite a few types of oak, some varieties have a brown center and are excellent for furniture or doors, some species have a red center, this wood is very hard and tough, which is quite demanding to process and even when it is processed, it wants to go own , has great internal forces.
Oh, l did not know this. Thank you Tone.
yes, it is the same kind of oak , cer, here called cerro (quercus cerris)…
the advantage of it is that it grows relatively quick, after 20 years you can have again a diameter of 20 -25 cm…
and another advantage for me personally is: if it would be good wood for building or furniture, for me every piece would be a pitty for firewood using, so at least i would remain without firewood…
A little correction Kristijan, not all trees with leafs are hard woods. The Siberian Elem, cotton wood, the tall wind break poplar we have out west, the peach, apricot fruit trees and many more trees not considered hard wood and all have leafs. But are not considered conifers trees in the pine, fir, larch family of trees.
Thanks for the responses! I’m just trying to figure out the difference between the wood supply and the process. We’ve got a lot of Hawthorne, which is hard but short, curvy, and has nasty thorns. The thorns make the bathtub or slanted barrel methods attractive. If we can handle it with lopping shears, we don’t get poked. Like Giorgio’s cerro, charcoal is about the best use for it.
Ha! Ha! In English this is just like the naming of a motor versus an engine!
“Hardwoods” versus “Softwood” as we here commonly use them means conifer trees versus deciduous trees.
A hardwood versus a softwood to an actual wood worker or carpenter will mean exactly that.
The hardwood needing pre-drilling of holes for nails and screws. The softwood able to screw-in, or nail in directly.
And many trees of both conifer and deciduous will have a harder, denser, center heartwood. And an outer softer live “sap” growth wood. Some species this is quite thick.
The stable heartwood having the strength, stability and more rot resistance.
The outer growth sap wood the soft easy workability. Less strength. Easy rotting and bug eating-boring-nesting loved.
Usually takes a years grown established tree to mature enough to form heartwood.
Steve Unruh
what belongs ash in the coal, i would say at least with the kiln coal you bring more ash in the gasifier ,because all the bark of the woodpieces also gets charred…bark 10% ash content, when i remember right…
while with the twigs on open fire i would say all all the thin bark of the twigs burns away…yes, more ash for cleaning out, but nearly no bark coal in the gasifier…
from my sight…
in the swiss gasifier book from tilman i have read that they have made premium motor coal quality in retorts only with barkless wood …
But twigs also have more ash in the center if l remember right…
Doesent realy matter, makes a bit more ash or slag in the gasifier no big deal.
Giorgio, best ever motor charcoal l found is from the hearth of a oak. It has a flaky structure, dense and hard with litle ash.
In my kiln l have noticed bark peals off of big logs mostly and crumbles down to the bottom of the kiln. When l pack the charcoal for sale its usualy all bakrless. From each batch l get abput 20kg of what looks to be suitible gasifier fuel, but it realy is mostly bark and its bad fuel! Dont ask how l know… goes directly in the manure pile.
wheel barrow construction for transport branches and twigs…
I like it a portable fire pit for making Charcoal. Move the fire pit to the wood, a lot less work moving a couple of things instead of moving all the wood.
I need to make one of those burning pits.
If you get an airtight cover on it and seal it. Air can’t get in and the coals go out eventually after they cool. If you want to continue to use the tub, you can use a larger say 55 gallon barrel and drop them all in hot and seal it off.
Otherwise, even the tinyest air gap will allow it to keep going.
Because I now use my Charcoal in a damp about 10% moisture content now , I just quench it with water in a container like a old wheel barrow tube when the batch is finished cooking. The ash goes to the bottom and use a metal leaf wreck to get the Charcoal out into a pile on plastic tarp with a slope. I like to wash it down water and cover it. You will need to change the water out and get all the muck out of the bottom of the tub every few batches. Caution, High lye contents in that water and muck. Let the pile it dry out to 10% moisture and bag it up or put it in a container. No ash dust to deal with. It make good stronge char gases. If it does dry out you can use a water drip when burning in a gasifier or add a little water to the Charcoal before use to about 10% moisture again. If the Charcoal has no dust it is because it is a little damp with moisture about 10% .
All of this I have learned from @KristijanL in his experiences and have tested it out for myself. The trick is not using to wet of Charcoal in the first place, it will not work very good. Also using engine grade size Charcoal 1/8" to 3/4" or 4 mm to 20 mm. Lots of different way to accomplish the same results in Charcoal gasification.
I didn’t like quenching because i got it too wet and the ash dissolves and i like using that as fertilizer. On the lawn it keeps bugs away for a little bit.
bob, coal washing is shure a good idea, but i am shure i cannot get it than dry again…this depends on climate conditions and availability of needed containers, what i have not…
on my “black panther” fuel station , the coal asorbs a lot of umidity from air, i see it best in my forge, a big cloud of vapour rises up when the coal gets hot…
the position of the fuel station is exposed to the sometimes very umid south wind-scirocco called…the station would need another place where the wind not arrives…
Yes climate is a big factor when drying things. I live in a aired desert climate along the Columbia River basin east of the Cascade Mountains Central Washington State USA. Less than 15% rain fall yearly. Humidity very low even in the winter time that times. Very easy to dry the Charcoal down to 10% moisture content where I live. Now west of the Cascade Mountains you can for get it. That’s the wet side of Washington state, very beautiful and Green all the time.
the last days we made some charcoal from twigs in bath tubs and there i have made a interesting observation…two times i have used for sealing the hot coal “used” ash, will say ash from the last sieving, with coal dust inside…
and i was surprised, because the next day the coal in the bath tub was nearly completely coole down…this has happened two times…
the third bath tub than i have sealed with “fresh” ash from the house stove, and the coal remained hot for some days in the bath tub…
really a great difference.
the temperature in those days was always the same, this is not the reason for faster or longer need for cool down of the coal…it must be the ash…the fresh ash seems to isolate more perfect so the heat remains longer inside, and therefore the need to bring the coal in smaller containers for avoiding loss during cooling.
when cooling completely in the bathtub with using "used "ash, is a good advantage, less work , less dust…
for the next coaling i will conserve some buckets of the “used” ash, for to see if it is always the same effect.
Giorgio, if l were to guess l wuld say the reason is somehow, the other ash seals better. Tinyest air gap can keep chacroal “hot” for days, invisibly burning inside. Also, as it cools, there is a vacuum produced inside and it will draw air in even trugh ash. Eventualy enaugh CO2 builds inside to finaly kill it but it can take a long long time.
My kiln is 2.7m3 and it cools from the end of burning to packaging in 8 hours… yours shuld be cool in way less time.
Next time, maybee try pouring a bit of water over hot coals just before you seal it. Its what l do, the water will boil and the steam provides a positive pressure that keeps air out of any pinholes. Its how l do it.
