Anybody make their own lump charcoal?

[flashhole]

Both the oven and the grill gave up the ghost before Thanksgiving. Ended up smoking a turkey. Have an oven on order. Charbroil grill with the lifetime warranty on the burners lasted two years. The burnt-through burners can be sent but the problem is the backside steel rusted through so there is nothing to connect the burners to. I put it out for trash pick up.

Have my eye on a Classic Kamado Joe that uses charcoal. I grill a lot and don't want to have to buy charcoal.

Any experience to share? Some good YouTube videos on the subject.

 

[066blaster]

I made some in my Woodstove the other day, not on purpose though. My air inlets were blocked with ash. I threw a few split in before bed and in the morning one of them never caught a flame but looked exactly the same as when I put it in accept it was black and could be crumbled, it was charcoal. Basically cooked the split. It was hickory. I'm not sure if I could do it again on purpose if I wanted. But you could try getting a hot fire going, then pushing the coals to one side and put a piece of wood on the other side and hope it don't fire up. Also not sure about any adverse affects as far as creasote from doing this.

 

[aokpops]

I done some with splitter truds . The trick is leaning when to put the fire out . I used steel barrels cut the bottom out fill burn till done . Suffocate fire wait a day or two an see what you got .

 

[Ironworker]

Funny, I do a lot of smoking and when I come downstairs in the morning to stoke the stove I see some nice unburned or dying chunks in there and the first thing that comes to mind is saving them. If ever I'm gonna smoke something I fill the stove with cherry and then use a shovel and transport the hot coals out to the weber.

 

[muddstopper]

When I am burning whiteoak in my stove, I just open the door and pull out some good charcoaled pieces and dunk them in water. i find this is a good way to char white likar. Take a few chunks of the charcoal and put in the jug and let it set on the shelf for about a year. Have to filter the likar before drinking, but it beats buying those expensive charred barrels.

 

[flashhole]

Interesting use of charcoal. I intend to use it for cooking.

 

[muddstopper]

I think to make any amount of charcoal, you will need a metal barrel with a tight fitting metal lid. If you have a turkey fryer, you can fill the barrel with wood and apply the lid. Big chips works better than whole sticks of wood. Using the turkey fryer, add heat to bottom of barrel. You can add, and probably should add a hose fitting to the lid to let out the methane that is produce from heating the wood. If you run a pipe from the hose fitting to the bottom of the barrel, the methane will actually help cook the wood in the can. It will produce enough methane to actually run a car engine. Once the barrel stops producing the methane, the wood should be turned into charcoal. Do not under any circumstances remove the lid from the barrel while it is still hot. Doing so will introduce oxygen to the hot wood and result in a major flash fire, might do more damage than just singeing your eyebrows.

 

[flashhole]

I saw one system that inverted the burn barrel and vented the gases back into the fire allowing it to burn significantly hotter. It's for that reason I would not want to use a propane burner. Wood will be the heat source. I have an unlimited supply of wood.

 

[Motorsen]

Sometimes I fill the weber grill starter with wood chunks of choice and light it with a small fire under it. In 10min or so the whole stack is full ablaze. Maybe 5mins more and the flammes are less intensive and most of the gasses are burnt out of the wood and ready to fill in the grill. Works pretty good for me when I have time to play with it. After all it is much easier to fill the grill starter from a paper bag bought in the local store than mess around with wood chuncks and stuff. And a word of caution maybe in place here. The wood chunks burn of pretty fast in the pipe thus producing a very hot fire! It is like when it first catches fire properly the stack effect really make it take off. Also therefor the tube burns of very fast.
And then it takes some prep work too. I cut some thick coockies and split them in 2" x 2" pieces. Then a couple of days on top of the wood stove to completely dry them bone dry. Lots of effort but mighty fun to play with.
I know that this is not "making charcoal" but works the same. If you have to grill for a longer time leave some coals left in the hot grill starter and toss a load of chunks on top and it will take right of again really fast in the hot tube. Also makes you realize that it takes alot of wood to start with to make charcoal. The chunks shrink a bit when first gassed off. Also this makes you able to decide and play around with different species of wood.
Have fun.

Motorsen