Charcoal Making

[TeeDee]

Charcoal Making

I've inherited a wood shed of well seasoned wood - Mostly a mix of predominately Hazel , Oak and some cherry.

I want to empty the wood shed for a different project ( Chalet style cabin ) and the current wood burner in the house isn't efficient at all , so there seems little point burning it as wood.

I have enough space and access to a 240lt metal drum with lid.

So thinking of having a go at loading it up and turning that wood into Charcoal.

How difficult is it? Control of heat and air - looking for some tips.

Can downscale this to a smaller metal drum if required for a few more controllable test batches.

 

[Dave Budd]

Small burns are more difficult to control than larger ones, things don't scale down that well. That said, a 200l oil drum isn't too hard and will give about a wheel barrow full of charcoal. An oil drum only takes a day to stack, burn and cool; so easy to experiment with

If you go that route, then it's worth running the wood through twice. The first one burn slowly and you'll get loads of brown ends as well as coals. Save the browns from the next couple of time and run them through a burn. The browns will give you a far greater yield of charcoal than the previous burns that started with wood. With a full sized kiln (even a 4' ring) the fire is controllable to dry everything and then convert slowly to get everything nice.

I wrote an article for the forum a while back about making charcoal. I'm sure if you look it is still around

 

[Tipi]

Just gonna leave this here:

Also simple modern method:

 

[Toddy]

This is Dave's article

Charcoal Making - BushcraftUK

Way back when I would buy my charcoal in from various woodsmen but after a while, I started to make my own in oil drums, as I have access to an unlimited amount of wood around my workshop! A couple of years ago, a friend moved his small kiln into my woods for safekeeping, and I have been making...

bushcraftuk.com