[TheForge] Re: propane vs coal vs charcoal

[Mike Spencer]

> Also, what size/type of wood is suitable for making charcoal?  

Speaking from casual observation, not from close scrutiny or
experience:

I used to live down the road from a couple of (old fashioned, straw)
beehive-shaped, small-house-sized brick charcoal kilns.  The operators
filled them with saw mill slabs.  I never looked closely but, from
familiarity with what was sawn thereabouts, it was probably heavy to
white pine..  It would be pretty costly in man-hours, for a commercial
operation, to sort truckloads of slabs.  But they may have (regularly
or occasionally) gotten their slabs from some mill that specialized in
hardwood.  I never looked that closely.

> Are we talking larger chunks (logs), or would smaller stuff also
> work - like sticks, branches, etc?

Big, solid chunks are probably not good.  If you look at he remains of
a camp fire or a piece of burned woodland, you find that big chunks
coaled on the outside but are still wood inside.  That would burn okay
in a forge fire but would make fire management a real pain.  I'd guess
that roughly uniform cross section would be best.  No 1/4" twigs
combined with 4" or larger bolts.  OTOH, once you get skills, process
and kiln all worked out, a run of all hardwood twigs would be
marketable as artist's charcoal. :-)

I've wondered if perhaps, for the small-time guy, sawing the wood into
slices would make the coaling process work better by opening more of
the grain -- the wood structures containing the volatiles.  Extra work
and chainsaw/cut-off-saw fuel traded off against shorter coaling runs
and more uniform product. ???

ObPolitics:  

The key notion of the American Revolution was "liberty".  The key
notion of the US Constitution was "property".  Discussion, flames etc.,
if desired, by private email, please.


- Mike


-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^