I’ve made a lot of charcoal while space heating with a barrel stove. No grates helps a lot. Just burn down to charcoal and then harvest about a third of the charcoal and repeat. Yield isn’t as high and ash needs removed but the heat goes to good use.
Or start small with a tlud about the size of a 20lbs propane tank. Small dry wood. Easy to control. As you gain the skills work up.
Looks like i’m in a good place…
I use a top lit one barrel sistem. I just put the wood tightly as possible in the barrel with some thin peaces of wood on top, soaked with a mix of old engine oil and a bit of gasoline. Put the chimeny on (lid and baseless 30 l drum) and throw a burning peace paper in the chimeny. All the smoke burns with oil and when the oil burns away the drum is hot enough to burn all the smoke. it only started smokeing once when the fire in the chimeny was put out by strong wind and the wood was half way chared. I just lit it with a torch on top of the chimeny and away we go.
That sounds like a good solution. I think if I did that and maybe put some charcoal in the kindling mix and did it at night with really dry wood, I might just get away with it. Thanks!
I vote for a TLUD, or depending on local bylaws, maybe a pack of weiners at hand will satisfy the officials. I have been running a 5 gallon TLUD, and can confirm that a layer of charcoal on top of kindling and newspaper should nearly eliminate the smoke issue. If it’s a larger TLUD, a proper afterburner should handle any other volatiles.
Darkness also does an amazing job of eliminating smoke. 
Garry Tait, Manitoba
I think we’ve got a winning strategy! Unfortunately, while I have plenty of wood, none of it is anywhere close to dry enough to do it at this point. I’m considering building a solar kiln and a moisture meter to speed up the drying process. I’m confident that once I have the dry wood, I’ll be able to make my charcoal without any attention from neighbors or government officials. Just to be sure, I’ll be doing it at night
Cory,
Avoid smoke by placing two pieces of 1/2" rebar between the two barrels. (see photo below from 2012) This allows more secondary air. Load the lower barrel with dry wood all about the same size, then put a good stack of little kindling on top of it, extending perhaps a foot above…into the chimney barrel. Then throw a five gallon bucket full of wadded up paper balls (like from individual pages of old phone books or large print Reader’s Digest magazines) into the top barrel, and light them through the gap where the rebar is laying. As soon as the paper is going it will shoot flames out the top, so add more dry small tree branches which the paper balls will immediately ignite. Then add some dry 1" branches which will build a nice bed of char on top of your lower barrel. Now you can walk away for about an hour or so, and the burn will be absolutely smoke free.
Thanks Ray, that’s almost exactly the system I have been using. Only with not-so-dry wood. That seems to be a key element.
I’m considering building a solar kiln to speed up the drying process, and hopefully, I’ll be back in business in a few months.
Great picture, thanks!
Thankfully, I have about 60 gallons of charcoal stored up for when I finally get the gasifier built and working. I built one last summer out of an old steel bug sprayer, and while it kind of worked, I never really got the mower to run smoothly, and the hose melted after a few minutes. Now that I have studied many of the designs of members here, I think I have a better idea of how it should be built. When it warms up, I’ll be back at it.
Good morning Cory.
I think there are some advantages and disadvantages of living in a dead zone. On many occasions I would try to send a smoke signal with several units including 5 trucks and a old farm tractor on a clear day . I would scan the horizon and get NO answer or reply as far as the eye could see in all directions . The best I can figure I am stuck in a dead zone but I feel sure if I drive out to the main highway I would get a reply.
After sending this message I saw from the far north horizon something that looked like ( please check the number and try again ) but it turned out just being a cloud 
LOL! That’s orders of magnitude more smoke than I made! Love that last pic of flames shooting out of the back!
Hi Cory, When people start living close to each other, one person’s actions can annoy another’s. Therefore ordinances are put in place to regulate activities. Get a copy of the burn ban ordinance. Contact the code enforcement officer who you have already met and find out what is legal and what is not. As I see from reading the posts, you figured out the problem with the two barrel method was unseasoned wood. Making charcoal from that creates a smoke bomb! The wood has to be seasoned to 20% moisture or less. If small camp fires are permissible, consider a pyramid kiln.
Gary in PA
The Moxham kiln is a similar concept, on a bigger scale. It could be scaled depending on the size of tank, or other round material available, and the size of wood at hand. I expect it should run fairly smoke free, given the heat it will produce. I suspect the dousing with water of that much charcoal at such high temperatures might partially activate it, might be good for biochar, but that’s just my speculation.
My newest drum system at the test
first video, cooking the charcoal, drum can rotate
the excess gas is rerouted towards under the tank, can see this and hear this in this vid.
second video, testing the new charcoal in the barbeque, no smoke, no yellow…
You are very lucky Koen to have all that bamboo , it looks like the perfect material for making charcoal with , I have native Australian hardwoods and no matter how well I cook mine it will always have that yellow tint in the flame , I also think there is less dust with your charcoal when crushing it from what I have seen .
If only I could grow it where I live I would be very happy too , so I shall have to wait till I retire to a beach front somewhere so I can harvest coconut shells for charcoal as I am told they make the best charcoal .
Dave
I collected up a truck bed full of logging slash from a newish clear cut a few miles down the road. Mostly red alder and maple branches about 1/2 to 1 inch (12.7-25mm) diameter.
The piles closer to the middle of the clearing should be much drier, as they get better sun/airflow.
I packed it into my modified/inverse Hookway charcoal retort and lit it up.
4 hours of constantly feeding it kindling later, I let it die out. Never had a self-sustaining flame in the chimney tube from expelled woodgas. Never burned off any paint from the barrel, even on the uninsulated top surface. (My insulation is on the inside of the barrel). 
It’s pretty obvious that the wood was still quite green/wet: about 20 minutes after the first firing, maybe a quart/liter of liquid water seeped out from my barrel lid (on the bottom no seal yet, just gravity and a ring clamp holding it shut.)
I’ll try firing it again tomorrow after I spent all this energy driving off so much water.
Will post pictures and more words to a dedicated thread later.
cooking and testing
Connecting the feedback gas to under the tank
Temperature probing
outside the tank
and inside the tank
when the charcoal is “done” “engine grade” or “cooking grade” it reaches about 650 degree celcius inside the tank.
Rotating the tank speeds things up fast
rotating the glowing tank…
Koen You mention the char is done when the inside of the tank gets to 650 C. I have heard the 650 figure used a lot but I thought that was 650 F when the pyrolesis stopped. If I figure correctly 650C wood be about 1112 F That is the temperature we go for for reduction TomC
