[TheForge] fire starting

[Jerry Frost]

This is how I light a coal fire; works just fine for charcoal too.

I cut a strip of cardboard about 2 1/2" to 3" wide and 12" + long, roll it
into a tight coil and place it over the air grate, letting it spring open a
little, a bit less than 1/4" between layers. I then pile the coal, coke,
charcoal around it, larger pieces directly against the coil, fines
surrounding those. Once you have enough fuel around the coil to hold it in
place I drop a few burning stick matches or similar slivers of burning wood
down the center of the coil and apply a gentle blast. The cautious use of
accelerants is just fine, so long as it ain't drinkin whisky! <grin> Once
the coil lights I keep the blast gentle and add coarse fuel on top of it to
a depth of several inches, then cap it with fines.

The cardboard coil acts like a torch directing the flame through the fuel.
Using coarser fuel on and around the coil allows the flame easy access to
the fuel. The fines help contain the heat and direct the fire up towards the
center top of the fuel pile. And lastly, cardboard burns significantly
hotter than paper. Cooler than wood to be sure, however, the coil burns away
leaving a nearly perfect chamber.

It takes less time to light the fire than it took to write this.

As a side note, I go ahead and coke a quantity of coal, up to a 5 gl. bucket
at a time, at the start of a session rather than deal with the smoke all
day. I do this by first breaking the coal up in 3/4"- pieces and casually
separating the fines, say 1/4"-. I build a fire and once it's going cover it
with the days coal and crank till it's well involved. When I start seeing
copious quantities of smoke I start poking a cavity in the top center of the
pile to encorage it to flash over. Once you have flames on the surface of
the pile the smoke is greatly reduced. With a merrily flaming pile of coal I
crank fairly vigorously till the pile starts to get kind of gummy. When it
starts getting gummy I periodically stop cranking to let the flames to go
out and check on the color of the smoke. When the smoke at idle is fairly
clean I use a shovel to turn the pile over, then crank a bit more to burn
off the last of the volatiles. When it's burning clean I rake the bulk of
the coke (breeze) to the side and extinguish with water.

In my experience a 5 gl. bucket of high quality coal produces enough breeze
to keep two guys working for a good eight hours on a moderate sized fire.
Best of all, all the smoking is over and done with in about 10 minutes at
the beginning of the session.

Oh yeah, in case you haven't guessed this doesn't work for making charcoal.
<grin>

Frosty
------------------------
If it ain't forged
it ain't real.
Wrought iron is.
The FrostWorks

Meadow Lakes, AK.