I had a load of logs delivered last year by the farmer across the street. There were a few cherry logs and I did not want to send all that smoke up the chimney so I have been experimenting with making my own charcoal. I also had an old water pressure tank which I cut in half. Here is how I have done it: First I split and cut the split wood into little pieces
Finished product So I get the wood burning then smother it with the lid and in 2 or 3 hours the charcoal is ready for my weber grill.
Well I prefer to do things myself rather than paying someone else and since I love a good fire why not make charcoal with a few bits and pieces
Mostly cherry but also pear. I have a weber kettle so even though it is a grill if I shut the lid it works like a smoker. Made barbecue last weekend with pork and beef, slow cooked on the grill for 2+ hours, just kept adding a few pieces or charcoal at a time.
Too bad you are in Ontario. If you get it to 190 degrees while cooking it slow it starts to melt the fat so it gets really lean. Trick is to cook it real slow.
Very cool. I have a bunch of cherry on hand so I might give this a try. I also scored some pear from a job I did a few months ago. I can't wait to try the pear out on the smoker. Nice seeing another Bucks Co member on here. I'm a Bucks native but currently live in NJ. I miss it. I have ancestors who lived in Q-town (they were quakers) in the late 1700/early 1800s. My 6th great-grandfather build this building on Main St Google Maps Sorry for the derail lol
Quakertown is a great little town. QMart is the best. Actually I live in Milford township. I know the building on your reply, right next to Liberty Hall.
Hello, great bbq pictures! If I may give you some advice a bit more on your charcoal making technique and give you a couple things to think about. First, charcoal is purely carbon. It would be completely black. I see you still have unburned wood after you pulled it from the set up. No biggie but try again and get the fire REALLY going. Secondly, Start with a bunch of softwood as a fire, small small stuff, then add your cherry or any other hardwood chunks. Make sure those are going really well too. By the time it is probably going strong at 30-45 mins and all of your wood is on fire and some white ash is beginning to show on your wood , cover the fire. The softwoods will burn to ash but your charcoal wood will burn twice as long and really really slowly. Don’t be surprised if the fire goesn for a whole day, it should smoke quite a bit. Think about your grandma’s pressure cooker, had that steel cap that kept the steam going out slowly but not all the way? Same sort of measure here. What will happen inside is basically like a cigarette that’s left alone and burns slowly but not completely. The idea is to continue to keep the wood burning while limiting the oxygen to the fire. When this happens, you burn the gasses of Pyrolysis and done correctly, you’re left with this completely black almost shiny charcoal. I’ve done this with a small 25 gallon barrel with a lid of some kind. The trick is to really get it going hot before you take the lid to it. I’ve put this barrel in my previous pits, got a fire going under it and around it, piled up so much in hot coals around it that the wood inside was on fire because of the hot metal surrounding it. Before using the barrel, I had to burn off the paint from it and any other stuff inside it. Any paint on your charcoal retort is best to be burned off, you don’t want to get that paint to mix in what you’re going to cook with. Stuffing it with larger chunks of apple, oak, cherry, any fruit wood or bbq wood is good and the chunks being big really help too. if you make them too small, it becomes crumbly. Optimally your charcoal shrinks some 25 to 40% depending on how the wood is burned so if you start with a 3 inch wide split, you’ll end up with something that’s about 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 inches after the burn. Then What will be the indicator that it was done correctly is none or very few “wood” pieces exist. You should be able to take a chunk of the wood inside, break it in half and the two halves should reveal completely black charcoal all the way through. Also the weight of your charcoal to the weight compared of the wood you started off with will be about half. Big difference. When I said that this may burn for quite some time, it can. Some retorts will burn slowly for 24-48 hours before you want to check it and it is crucial that if you feel any warmth on your retort, wait until it cools, it will be worth it or otherwise you could start the fire back up again and there goes that charcoal you worked hard to wait for to be ready. Hopefully this helps you on your next charcoal fire, I’m setting up to do this soon myself, got busier than I thought this past week. I did post up a thread here about making the charcoal but my photos aren’t on my phone anymore.
Wow, glad I posted this since I have learned quite a lot here. I have not been putting the container in the fire pit just starting the fire right in the tank so the inside is completely black with no paint remaining. Originally I wanted to paint the tank up like a minion, but decided to try and make charcoal. I have been dealing with either the wood not completely becoming charcoal or I end up with nothing left just a nice fire. I suspect part of this it the seal on the apparatus I am using here (an old pressure tank). Even though I am replacing the top exactly where the tank was cut i still get a little bit of smoke, in fact I sometimes get smoke and flames coming out the bottom. Suspect I have to do something with closing my draft since the fire keeps burning. The charcoal does start really easy especially the wood part since it is so dry and since I am using a Weber kettle I can put the lid on and keep the fire down. I will have to search a little harder to find your thread. Glad the conversation started.
All good, me too! Charcoal isn’t the most easy thing to do, doesn’t come out perfectly but I had tried several times with some mixed results. Tried it in a kerosene can with a tight lid and a pen sized hole, in a pit fire. Soon I had something that sounded like a jet. Too much air. There was charcoal but burned up far too much. When I got the barrel however it worked but slightly too hot. Then the damm thing tipped over. Zero charcoal. Finally made something decent after about 4/5th time. If it makes it easier make your batches small and then increase with need and what worked, try that. The variable is air control so developing the sense to open that up and close it at the right time will be crucial. I’m trying to see how you open up your air to your tank so you can get a better burn out of it and then seal at the right time. When you start your Charcoal shouldn’t flame so much in a grill, maybe a little bit. Flame and flare, that’s often what raw wood on a bed of coals does. It coals hot, glows and sparks if the kind of wood is used. As always your mileage may vary but whatever keeps you from buying the store bag!
Only time I use charcoal, is when I fire up the smoker. I wouldn't use lump charcoal in the smoker as it burns too hot. Seems like an awful lot of wood gets used to make lump charcoal. Why not just cook/grill using coals from burning down the chunks?
I do that all the time, What’s different? Flame size. Charcoal will burn up very quickly while wood burns slower but depending on the heat for application, the charcoal makes a faster fire than wood. If I’m using wood then I’m likely to get more flame flares than glowing coals. The heat is easier to control. Less smoke with charcoal.
