Make Your Own Lump Charcoal?

I got a crazy idea while cleaning out the stove ashes, saving the unburnt coals! Why not make my own Lump Charcoal? I've bought a few different brands of lump Royal Oak, Cowboy, Stubbs. They're pretty much the same, a few large pieces mostly small pieces and crumbs. Looks like all I need is a 55 gallon steel barrel. I can get free barrels at work, but it either had form oil, concrete cure, or diesel in it. Wouldn't a hot fire burn all that stuff out of there? I have plenty of hard wood available, oak, locust, almond, walnut, mulberry. I guess I would want to cut my splits into chunks. Seasoned or not so seasoned wood ,dry enough to burn, or just let the fire dry it out? Hmm, well too much smoke isn't a good thing so probably drier is better. Much more research required. We all like fire and have lots of good wood, seems like a no brainer!

 

Along the A/T just passing into PA from MD, heading up to chimney rock, there are remnants of sites where coal was once made. I think the drum would work, some methods I have seen gasify it as well. I think a nice blend of fruit woods would be pretty tasty.

 

Oh yeah, you can make a retort with the 55g and a smaller grease drum. It's easy and a good way to get rid of splitter trash. There's a million how to videos on youtube, here's a starting point....

 

Like the video above, the paint is being burned off, seems the whole idea of charcoal is to burn off everything but the carbon, leaving charcoal behind. Another simple video

 

No, not at all. Maybe that's why grilling on charcoal gets a bad rap from the ignorance of fact. Coal and charcoal are different animals. Both are carbon fuels. I don't know much about coal mined from the ground but would really like to turn some of my split stacked firewood into lump charcoal for my barbecue.

 

Like Scotty Overkill stated might be a little leary of chemicals but I know there are some other ways to make it. Basically you just need to starve it of oxygen in a round about way.

 

..and most of the electricity generated in the United States?.. No, not that stuff.

 

well, I know nothing- that's the point of this thread. p[lease tell me what you know. i can google all day long. nothing better than a forum member that has done it and can offer advice.

 

I never made my own. If you look attuneighty pic you see a large mound. It should have been a large fire that was than covered in dirt. Starves the fire of oxygen causing the flames to go out but char the wood. If you had some incomplete burns or took coals out of the stove and put in a metal container with lid it would be much the same. Don't know if I would use a galvanized container for the chemical leaching from the heat.

 

When I was using a Hotblast furnace in my basement, I would sometimes get a huge build-up of coals in cold weather. So, I would take out a couple of shovels worth (like a normal pointed shovel, not a little fireplace shovel), put them in a five gallon bucket of water for a few minutes, then spread them out on an old window screen to dry for a week or so. I would fill up a 30 gal trash can and use it thru the summer.

Now, I gotta buy it.

 

I think if you had a nice burn in the barrel before using it to make charcoal would be fine. Seems this is the method to make the UDS.


Hmmm, wonder if you could make a barrel dual purpose, make the charcoal and then smoke the meat in it?

 

Your probably right about a good burn burning everything off the barrel. How many countless grills and smokers have you seen made from barrels or oil tanks? I want to find an 80 gallon compressor tank to make one.

 

I have a friend that makes his own all the time. Believe it or not he uses an old cast iron bathtub. Covers everything up with dirt/sand/ash then tips it over and sifts out the charcoal. It is GOOD stuff for cooking. Makes stove bought stufo seem silly.

 

Havent used commercial store bought charcoal for years.I always sift out the coals from the weber kettle,brinkmann smoker for reuse.There's always plenty of extra still smoldering after the meat/veg are finished cooking.Hit them with the garden hose til they are cold,let them dry a couple days & back in the firebox they go.Even sift out a couple big handfuls of coals from the fireplace when cleaning out ashes once a week.

 

I won't tell you guys that cooking with old barrels is fine, that's for each individual to decide for themselves, but, I have lots of experience with building burning/cooking things with drums. Here's what I've found: food grade barrels have a red or tan(usually) epoxy liner inside. Those are nasty! And very, very difficult to burn away, so avoid those. Barrels that were used for petroleum products typically are bare steel inside with paint on the outside. A good roll through a hot bonfire, or a 20 minute session with a roofing torch will remove essentially all the outer paint and a good fire inside during the process will also clean the inside of any remnants of whatever was inside. Once you have removed all the paint and stuff from inside, you can do a sacrificial run the first time you use it and try to get it as hot as your process will get, after that, in my opinion, you are good to go. Petroleum products are no problem to burn away completely from the inside, in my opinion. The big one to watch out for is refrigerant. If you see a drum that held refrigerant, DO NOT try to burn that out. Just walk away and find another drum, same with food grade.