How to make charcoal easy and cheap (pic heavy)

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spandit

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 6, 2011
5,594
308
East Sussex, UK
Old thread...

My wife bought me a Kadai charcoal maker & our neighbours gave me an oil drum converted into a burner. With all the willow I've coppiced, I've been burning the brash in the barrel (despite the rain it hasn't gone out for 3 days!) - the Kadai fits in well & using the chunks of willow from last year, I've made quite a bit of charcoal - good use of a waste material :)
 

spandit

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 6, 2011
5,594
308
East Sussex, UK
Made a good batch today but some of it had started burning, so had to hose it down - should be dry by the summer!

IMG_4440.jpg


Reloaded the Kadai and put it in for another batch. Got the barrel hot... really hot:

IMG_4441.jpg


(that's glowing red hot, by the way!). Unfortunately, as I knelt down to take this photo, I noticed that the end had fallen off the Kadai and all the charcoal was alight - far too hot to retrieve so just have to chalk that up as a failure. I will modify the Kadai to stop the lid coming off next time - always thought it was a poorly designed product. I've run out of leylandii brash to burn now so might have to wait until we have the tree surgeon round again to cut some more!
 

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