A very easy charcoal maker Steve McGrew Incandescent Ironworks, Ltd. www.incandescent-iron.com May 21, 2012 At the 2012 NWBA Spring Conference, Jim Von Mosch told me he had been making charcoal. I had thought about making charcoal before, partly as a way to dispose of the tons of driftwood that accumulate at my dock on Long Lake. Jim convinced me it might actually be a practical solution to the problem. So, last Sunday I got the parts together and built a smallscale indirect charcoal maker. It took a morning to find the components at a local recycler and Home Depot, and about 3 hours to build the system The difference between a direct and an indirect charcoal maker is that in the direct type the wood youʼre converting to charcoal burns, leaving a portion converted to charcoal; while in the indirect type, the wood is heated in a retort devoid of oxygen so it does not burn. The indirect method is more efficient, and produces purer charcoal free of ash and unconverted wood.
My charcoal maker is made from these parts: four pieces of 6 square pipe, 10.5 long, 3/16 thick (14 long would be better) one piece of 6 square pipe, 41 long, 3/16 thick one piece of 3/16 sheet steel, 5.5 x 6 one 6 nipple, 3/4 steel pipe one 55-gallon drum with a ring clamp lid one 10-dollar roll of R-13 fiberglass insulation A square foot of wire mesh A disk of 1/8 sheet metal, roughly 16 diameter some leftover strips of kaowool or stove gasket. A = 10.5 B = 6 C = 42 Necessary tools were a plasma cutter and a welder. Here is how the charcoal maker goes together: a. Weld the four 10.5 sections of pipe together to form a cross with a square hole in the middle.
b. Weld the 41 long section on top of the middle of the cross.
c. Cut 6 x 6 holes in the centers of the top and bottom of the 55-gallon drum, to fit the vertical square pipe.
d. Cut or drill holes in the 41 section, about an inch above the cross as shown here. e. Cut a disk or square, flat, with a 6 square hole in the middle, to fit over the pipe and drop down onto the bottom X as shown here. f. Optionally, make caps that can be put over the ends of the X to control air flow, as shown here.
g. Remove the small plug from the lid and screw in the 6 nipple of 3/4 pipe. h. Put strips of kaowool or stove gasket around the vertical pipe, on the plate. i. Set the 55-gallon drum over the 41 section, onto the plate (with the kaowool or gasket in between) wood gets, the faster it produces gas, which burns to produce even more heat. As soon as the fire is self-feeding, you can stop feeding it with sticks. When the wood in the barrel is all converted to charcoal it stops producing gas and the fire goes out. Wait until the barrel and pipe are cool. This can easily take six hours or more. j. Wrap the drum with insulation, with the paper side out. Tape it using aluminum tape. To Operate the Charcoal Maker Fill the drum with wood (preferably hardwood, but any wood will do), and clamp the lid on. Put a tin can over the nipple. (This serves as a pressure relief valve) Build a small fire in the center where all of the pipes come together. Feed the fire by dropping sticks down through the vertical 41 section. Eventually the wood in the drum will get hot enough to start releasing wood gas. The gas will exit the holes at the bottom, enter the vertical pipe, and burn. The burning gas will produce enough heat to start a self-feeding cycle. The hotter the
Some tips on operating the charcoal maker: It can take up to an hour to get the fire self-feeding. Just keep dropping sticks down the vertical pipe so flames are shooting out the top. After a while you will see white smoke coming out around the lid clamp or under the tin can, but this is just steam. Eventually the smoke will get denser, and if you test it with a torch youʼll see that it is flammable. At that point the system is beginning to self-feed. When you find that it burns without your needing to drop any more sticks down the chimney, you know it is self-feeding. If you put too much fuel down the chimney, you can choke off the fire. Similarly, if too much ash or chunks of burned wood get into the horizontal pipe sections they can block off the air supply. Donʼt get in a hurry to open the lid. If the barrel or pipe are still hot, you can be sure the charcoal is still hot, and it will self-ignite when you expose it to air. You need to give it time to cool down. Any air that leaks into the barrel will result in at least a portion of the charcoal burning to ash. Thatʼs why a gasket is placed between the drum bottom and the disk. It seems that there may be an optimum air flow, which is less than the amount of air that flows when all four ends of the X are open. If the flame seems to whoosh, or blow itself out, plug some of the ends. " " " One load
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