Bulk Producing Pine Charcoal

The wood is burned towards the back of the barrel, once a fire is going good on top more is piled in. Because of how the wood is piled in the barrel, the wood burning on top cooks the wood in the bottom layers to charcoal. This is perfect for turning pine into BP charcoal because the high temperature cooking removes all the creosote. The charcoal is then washed to keep it from turning to ash, and removing any ash that may have fallen off the top logs. Drying time is about 5 days outdoors in my 60% humidity.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• sugar
• rocket
• shell
• mortar
• firework
• m80
• kno3
• potassium
• nitrate
• candy
• propellant
• comet
• beraq
• black
• powder
• spiking
• homemad

[MrThahey]

how well does pine charcoal work for iron smelting?

[Nighthawkinlight]

@MrThahey It may burn hot enough, but it will likely burn too quickly to get iron up to temperature. You may want to look elsewhere besides a wood charcoal.

[garrett2119]

if its made right pine charoal can be used for cooking, you just have to make sure that its "cooked" long enough for all the resins to burn out

[Nighthawkinlight]

@garrett2119 Yes, it could be safely used, but it burns extremely quickly compared to other harder charcoals. Because of the low density it would require much more by volume to cook and constant feeding to replenish what turns to ash.

[pliedas]

so pine charcoal is ok to cook with too?

[Nighthawkinlight]

@pliedas No. Pine burns too quickly and with too much resin for use in cooking. Ideally, you would want a hardwood like hickory, oak, ash, maple...Be sure you are not using a wood that is poisonous.

[PyroPortrayal]

You might need to dry it in a drying box, dehumidifier, or really low temp oven to get all the water out. Some people experience comps balling up or coating the sides of their ball mill because the chems have a tiny amount of moisture in them. Supposedly charcoal is usually the culprit.

[9DragonMaster]

@Nighthawkinlight why spray it down??? What are you spraying it with? water or with alchohol? i always transfer it straight into plastic bags once the lid cools off. My result was really good lift powder grade bp using cedar and 13 hour mill. I'm about to make pinecone charcoal since I've ran out of wood to use, can I use a 2x4 which is typically douglas fir? I went to lowes and home depot looking at the names of the woods they had, rubbish. Any tips? I've got lots of 2x4's and pinecones

[japanesepoptart]

@iDrawYouChoob

Pine is better.

The type of charcoal, hardness of the wood, type of wood, and grandulation size all affect the preformance of both black powder and many other compositions

I know some other good types of wood are; willow, maple, balsa(expensive), and also pouplar, but I haven't tried pouplar for myself.

[Nighthawkinlight]

@mjw789234 Pine is ideal for many uses in fireworks.