Katie’s Blog Spot: Self-sufficiency – Making your own lump charcoal

Summer time is prime grilling season.  Aromatic smokey sizzling meat can be scented far and wide throughout American neighborhoods.  Coinciding with the crack of a cold beer, and the laughter of people gathering to greet their neighbors that they haven’t spent time with during the winter months.  A day by the grill often ends in full belly’s from your favorite charred meat, and maybe one too many libations.  I love this season in our suburban neighborhood.  John and I are both social people, and are lucky enough to have some pretty great neighbors that we get along with well.

Each trip that we make to Rustic Pines is sending large doses of reality through my brain.  While I enjoy the time we spend in our suburban neighborhood, I love the time we spend at our land.  I have always been a girl in love with nature.  I love the woods, the quiet stillness that surrounds me brings be a great sense of peace.  It centers me and reminds me of what is important in life.  It is not the daily rat race, or the sizzling meat on the grill on the weekends.  Life is about perpetual learning.  Learning how to deepen relationships with those you love and care about.  Learning about who you are and what makes you happy while you are here.  Learning how to give, rather than take.

Our goal with Rustic Pines is not a re-creation of suburbia in the middle of the woods, but rather a secluded escape from it, along with all of society’s trappings.  That said, there are certain conveniences we would like to have, that are not readily available to us due to the distance to the nearest store, such as charcoal.  A few weeks ago, I wondered if there was an easy way to make our own?  A few keystrokes later, the internet opened up a vast array of solutions!  And my first experiment with making homemade charcoal was born.

How do you make homemade charcoal (a.k.a. Lump charcoal)?

If there is one item we have readily available at Rustic Pines, it’s wood.  To make charcoal, hardwoods such as Ash, Oak, or Birch are great woods for making your own lump charcoal.  These types of hardwoods all have one thing in common, a low moisture content.  Using soft wood or wood with a high moisture content is not recommended, because they will burn too quickly if they are soft, and will not burn well if too wet.  The advantage of making our own charcoal is two-fold.  Obviously the biggest advantage is cost savings.  With a readily available supply of trees on our land, we have essentially an endless supply that we can produce our own with little to no cost, other than our time and labor.  The second advantage is we know what is in our charcoal.  There are no extra additives, unlike the briquette charcoal purchased in a store.  I want to know what is going into my body, even if I frequently eat too much (this girls loves food).

I am almost always a “go big or go home” type of girl.  But, in this experiment, I wanted to make a small batch first, simply because I wasn’t convinced that it would actually work.

Supplies used:

Aged Ash wood

one gallon paint can (new and unused)

Carpenters Awl (you can use a nail and a hammer, but my carpenter hubby has lots of cool tools I like to play with)

Bonfire

Wet paper towel

 

Step 1: Cut up chunks of aged Hardwood

I solicited my sweet hubby’s help for this step of the process.  There is a reason why my nickname is “Clumsy Katie”, and I didn’t want to lose any digits in this process.  Always the willing participant, John used his ax to chunk the Ash wood into decent sized pieces.

Step 2:  Place chunks in paint can

You want to fit as much wood in the paint can as you can possibly jam in there, while ensuring you still are able to get the lid on to seal it tight.

Step 3:  Tap holes in lid of paint can

Charcoal is made by burning wood in the absence of oxygen, and lump charcoal is the product of that.  Tap several holes into the top of the lid to allow the gasses from the wood to escape during the cook process.  Off-gassing is a process that removes the flammable gas from the wood without burning the wood.  Because I like playing with my husbands vast amount of tools, I used his ball peen hammer and Carpenters Awl.  But a nail and hammer will work just as well.

Step 4:  Seal lid on paint can

Similar to wanting your left-over paint not to dry out, seal the lid on tight to keep the oxygen and external fire out of the can during the cook process.

Step 5:  Build a bonfire

You want a nice hot fire to cook your charcoal.  Of course, because I get my mind set on trying new things immediately after I read about it, I chose to have a bonfire on a 90 degree day.

Step 6:  Make depression in the middle of the bonfire

Once you have a nice hot fire, clear out the center to make a depression to place the paint can in.  I determined the fire was hot enough when I had sweat dripping down my purple face.  Place the can in the center of the depression, and continue building the fire around the can, up to the top of the lid.

Step 7: Try not to overheat while watching the magic happen

The first thing that will happen during this process is you will see steam coming out of the holes of the lid.  This is the moisture escaping from the Hardwood.  After the moisture has left the wood, you will see flames shooting out of the holes.  This is the wood off-gassing, or removing the flammable gas from the hardwood.  To make charcoal, we have to remove the hydrogen and oxygen in the wood while leaving just the carbon.  This is done by heating the wood until the chemical bond breaks apart.  I wish I would give you an estimate of how long this process takes, but it is variable.  I didn’t time the cook start to finish because not only was I more concerned about the fact that I was so hot, (I thought I would spontaneously burst into flames), but part-way through the cook, some of our good friends stopped by to visit and unwittingly watched the rest of my experiment.  It is done when flames are no longer shooting out of the holes from the lid of the paint can.

Step 8: Allow paint can to completely cool

Once the flames cease to come out of the top of the can (very carefully) remove the paint can from the fire.  Place a wet paper towel over the top of the lid, covering the holes.  This prevents oxygen from entering the can while it’s still hot enough to ignite.  You want to take out the chemicals to create carbon, then stop the wood from burning any further until it is cooled.  What makes a fire burn?  Oxygen!  When it is safe, flip the can upside down on the paper towel to ensure no oxygen enters the can while it finishes cooling. (Clumsy Katie may have solicited her hubby’s help on this step).

Step 9:  Lump Charcoal!

Once the can has completely cooled (it took a couple of hours), open the lid, and observe the magic!  As soon as we pried the lid off of the paint can, John, and our friends Al and Sandy, can attest to the fact that I squealed in delight!  I did it, I actually made lump charcoal!  You know you did it right if you can easily break it apart.  Since this small batch turned out so well, and it was so easy to do, my next step is to research how to make it in bigger batches.  Now that I know I have found something that will be incredible useful at Rustic Pines, I plan on making and storing it.  When we don’t have access to our camp stove, or the ability to cook on an open fire, we can still cook our nourishment using another heat source.  I’m really ecstatic that this was a successful experiment!

Until next time folks, happy homesteading!

Katie