How to make charcoal for a shish kebab. How to make charcoal at home DIY charcoal

Spring has come, and with it the time for barbecue. But what is needed to prepare a delicious meal in the fresh air ?! Of course the products! But you cannot do without fuel for the fire, because the fragrant smell of haze is 50% of success. You can take fruit wood or any other leftover from last season. But it is best to use charcoal. His consumption is small and the heat is stable. Now a huge amount of such raw materials is being sold, but we are economical owners, aren't we ?! Therefore, I decided to write about how to make charcoal with your own hands at home.

Charcoal was made by our ancestors. They came to this process purely intuitively. The bottom line is that the wood must burn out without the participation of oxygen. In the modern world, this procedure is called pyrolysis, and it is used not only in the production of charcoal.

• It is quite easy to make such fuel at home. All you need is wood. Basically any will do, but I don't recommend using resinous rocks. They will also make charcoal, but you will need to take into account some of the nuances.
• I advise you to use alder, poplar, acacia, oak, beech, hornbeam, maple, ash and even willow. From a scientific point of view, these tree species form different brands of charcoal, which differs in its characteristics. But you and I make fuel for ourselves, at home, so any wood will do. There are three ways to make DIY charcoal at home.

Charcoal in the pit

The easiest way to make wood char at home is to make it in a hole. To do this, you need firewood, a sheet of metal, meter by meter, or some other metal cover. And of course the pit itself. I recommend digging it up to a meter deep and 60-80 centimeters wide. From this volume, you get almost two bags of charcoal.

1. The first step is to dig a hole, and tamp the bottom well.
2. Next, we begin to make a fire at the bottom of the pit. For this, any firewood and sticks are suitable.
3. It is worth filling the hole by about a third. When the wood is almost burnt out, put the rest of the wood on top to the top. It will be very good if all the logs are the same size. They must be folded very neatly (if possible). As I wrote earlier, in principle, you can use any wood. But it is better to take a certain type of wood for one firebox.
4. When all the overlaid firewood caught fire, and the fire appeared from above, you need to cover the fire with a lid or a sheet of iron. Next, sprinkle everything with earth to block the oxygen access to the maximum. You can also throw raw herbs over the top. The most important thing is that the lid is flush with the ground, and not rest against the wood.
5. Next, we leave our pit alone for a couple of days until the process is completed and the firewood itself cools down. After this time, we remove the lid and take out the charcoal made by ourselves.

In a barrel

The more optimal, in my opinion, way to make charcoal at home is to produce it in a metal barrel. It can be of any size. If you have a container for oil products or other materials, then I recommend that you burn it thoroughly before using it. There are two ways to craft Barrel Charcoal.

1. The first method resembles the process of making charcoal in a pit. The only exception will be the absence of the need to dig a hole. I recommend placing two bricks on the bottom of the barrel and making a fire between them. When the fire is strong enough, place a metal grate on top of the bricks. After that, put firewood on it. When the fire has consumed all of the top layer, close the barrel with a lid, leaving a small gap. After a while, white smoke should come out of it, this is a sign that the lid can be closed completely. Next, we wait for the barrel to cool down and take out our fuel.
2. The second method involves making a fire under the barrel itself. Firewood is loaded inside the container, the lid is closed, and a small hole is made from below for air and gases to enter. The barrel must be placed on some kind of bed - these can be ordinary bricks. Next, make a fire and keep the fire going for 12 hours. This time may vary depending on the type of wood. After this period, you can open the barrel and take out the coal. This method is good in that the finished coals are of the correct shape and do not crumble so much. The downside is that the process takes a long time.

In the oven

1. You can cook charcoal in any oven. To do this, we kindle a fire, lay firewood, and wait until they light up. It is necessary to wait until they turn completely red, after which they must be removed from the oven and transferred to a metal or ceramic container.
2. After that, you need to immediately close it with a lid, blocking the access of oxygen. When the container has cooled down, you can take it out of the container.
3. Frankly, I have not tried this method, and it seems to me that the charcoal is not of very good quality. But if you do not want to dig a hole or you do not have a barrel, then you can use it.

Outcome

I hope my today's article was clear and useful to you. Now you know that you can not only buy charcoal, but also make it yourself. I am sure that you will succeed and you will enjoy delicious food in the fresh air, cooked with home-made fuel.

If you are not yet familiar with my colleague's article "Spring, time for barbecue, or how to make a fire correctly", then you can read it at this.

Write in the comments what do you use for a fire: wood or charcoal?

Among the various types of solid fuels, charcoal is of particular interest, consisting of 80-90% pure carbon. This makes it primarily an efficient biofuel, practically smokeless and environmentally friendly. Its scope of application is wide enough both in various industries and for home use. In this article, we will look at how you can burn charcoal with your own hands and how this happens in industrial production.

Production technology

Coal from wood is consumed in large volumes by metallurgical enterprises, where it is used for the production of high-purity alloys, as well as for saturation of the metal with carbon, as a result of which its physical properties increase.

In the chemical industry, this product is used in the manufacture of glass, various plastics and even paints. Coal has not been spared by the food industry either; in food products, it often acts as a natural dye, which is displayed on their packaging under the E153 code.

Such a significant demand requires corresponding volumes of production, therefore, charcoal stoves are usually located near or on the territory of woodworking enterprises. This is understandable, because there are large quantities of wood waste of various species, which serve as raw materials for charcoal burning.

In simple terms, the charcoal production technology is designed to solve the problem of obtaining carbon from wood as pure as possible. For this, all other organic and inorganic substances must be removed, which is achieved using the pyrolysis reaction. Its essence lies in the isolation of all excess compounds from the raw material by thermal decomposition with insufficient oxygen. But let's go in order.

There are four stages of the production process (not counting the preliminary preparation of raw materials):

• drying at temperatures up to 150 ºС. The pyrolysis process, which takes place at higher temperatures, requires a minimum amount of moisture in the raw material;
• pyrolysis at a temperature of 150-350 ºС and a lack of oxygen. Thermal decomposition of substances occurs and coal begins to form. Pyrolysis gases are evolved;
• combustion (calcination) when heated to 500-550 ºС. At this stage, tar and residues of substances in the form of gases are released from the coal;
• recovery (cooling).

Basically, a coal production plant is a furnace where all of the above reactions take place. The figure below shows a diagram of the technological process:

Charcoal oven

The charcoal stove is quite complicated; it is very difficult to repeat its design at home. The body of a cylindrical or rectangular shape has a combustion chamber, on top of which 2 closed containers are loaded, filled with raw materials - retorts. The wood is heated from the outside, through the walls of the retort, while it uses the heat released by the wood in the process of reactions. The operation of the furnace in various modes is shown in the diagram:

An industrial furnace for the manufacture of charcoal is designed in such a way that while pyrolysis is taking place in one container, drying is in progress in the second, pyrolysis gases are burned out and pass through the retort with wet raw materials. This priority is followed further, until the final product is obtained. It turns out that the internal volume of each vessel is divided into zones, in each of which a certain process takes place:

After calcining, the containers with coal are unloaded and new ones are put into the furnace. Before packing and sending to the warehouse, the product undergoes a crushing operation to the required fraction size, and, if necessary, briquetting. The apparatus where all operations are carried out according to this technology is a continuous charcoal furnace. However, there is another technology, but it is more complex and expensive, although it provides high performance.

Making charcoal at home

Information about home charcoal burning is of interest to those people who are engaged in forging metal from small workshops. Biofuels as clean as charcoal have long been considered the best for a forge. Well, everyone has long known how good coal is for barbecues and barbecues, but it is a little expensive to buy it in a store. Based on the fact that equipment for the production of charcoal is complex, expensive and bulky, we will offer two methods that have long been tested by home craftsmen:

• burning coal in a barrel;
• charcoal burning in the pit.

The method of producing coal in a barrel, as in a pit, assumes the same technological process of pyrolysis in a confined space with a lack of oxygen. Only under such conditions does the product turn out to be not so pure for obvious reasons. The skill of the performer also plays an important role, the first 2-3 portions may simply burn out (which happens more often) or, conversely, underburned. But everything comes with experience.

The method of charcoal burning in a barrel is considered to be more convenient and technologically advanced. So, to make charcoal yourself, you need a metal barrel itself with a capacity of 200 liters, and even an old vacuum cleaner. Any other cylindrical metal container, preferably with thick walls, will do, it will last longer. A hole is drilled at the very bottom of the container and a fitting is cut in. A hose from the vacuum cleaner is connected to it, this will supply the primary air to the combustion zone.

It is important to find an airtight lid for the barrel. If there is none, it is necessary to adapt a sheet of metal, asbestos cement or other material for this purpose. You will also need a long steel poker for shura firewood. Regarding the latter, one important point should be noted. Since charcoal is made at home with improvised means, the technology is not always followed, but it is imperative to withstand the low moisture content of firewood.

Important! Freshly cut wood or wood saturated with moisture will not work for charcoal, there will be a lot of smoke, and the pyrolysis process will not start or it will be very sluggish. As a result, you will get ash or unburned firewood. The wood must be dry.

The bark is removed from the tree (it smokes a lot, and it gives very little coal) and sawed into chocks up to 40 cm long so that they are tightly packed into the barrel. Then a small fire is made at its bottom and a vacuum cleaner is turned on, otherwise the fire will start to smoke heavily.

As the wood burns up, you need to add the next portion. It should be noted that the production of charcoal in this way is a delicate process, here it is necessary to correctly capture the moment when the raw material has flared up well, but not to let it burn out to ash, but to add new wood. If necessary, you can turn off the vacuum cleaner for a while, and when loading more than half of the container, it is better to insert the air supply pipe from above.

When the barrel is full, it is covered with a lid, the vacuum cleaner is turned off, and the fitting is closed with a plug. Now you need to wait until the processes inside the closed vessel are over, you can open the lid only after the walls of the container have cooled completely. The convenience of the barrel is that you can simply turn it over and calmly sort the resulting product. Some of the wood will remain unburned, but it doesn't matter, it will go to the next load. The rest of the coal is sieved and bagged.

Charcoal in the pit

You can make charcoal yourself at home or right in the forest in a hole. To get 2 bags of coal, you need to dig a round hole approximately 80 cm in diameter and half a meter deep.

The bottom is trampled underfoot, and the walls are cleaned so that the fuel does not mix with the ground. The latter does not need to be thrown far away, it will come in handy at the end. The difference with the "barrel" burning is only in the absence of forced pressurization of the vacuum cleaner. They take dry firewood, 30 cm long and no more than 7 cm in diameter, of which a small fire is laid out at the bottom of the pit.

Further actions - as in the case of a barrel, raw materials are added as needed. A hole full of firewood is covered with leaves or grass, then covered with earth and tamped. You can come for coal in 2 days, by that time it will definitely cool down.

Conclusion

Of course, charcoal, burnt by hand, cannot be compared in quality with factory-made fuel. But after all, household requirements are not as high as in production, the coal is quite suitable for a barbecue or a blacksmith's forge. You just need to take care not to harm others from smoke or start a fire in the forest.

Charcoal is a natural biofuel. When the need arises, people go straight to the store to buy it. The prices for such a product leave much to be desired.

This is good if coal was needed for the barbecue, but if coal is needed to operate a city fireplace, then the cost of buying it increases greatly.

It is possible to reduce your cash costs if you make such a fuel with your own hands. There is a way to get coal at home, which was invented in antiquity. Under the influence of high temperatures, coal is obtained from trees, which provides heat for a long time.

The use of charcoal in the modern world

On an industrial scale, charcoal is used in the following areas:

• metallurgy;
• coal is made to melt crystalline flint;
• agrarian business;
• medicine, for sure everyone knows good old activated carbon.

It is interesting: they began to use charcoal en masse back in the XIV century, it was then that a profession with an interesting name appeared - charcoal burner. Firewood was used as a raw material, coal as a semi-finished product for blacksmithing, metallurgy, and ceramic production.

Coal is actively used in everyday life, because when burning, it gives an even, calm heat. It is acquired by:

1. For large decorative fireplaces in private homes.
2. Stoves. Then it is better to purchase solid wood material.
3. Mangalov. The even heat gives the cooked food a completely different flavor.
4. Flowerpots, plant fertilizers.

Due to the high demand, the industrial production of charcoal is actively developing. To prepare such raw materials at home yourself, you do not need blueprints and a large amount of material for building a huge furnace.

Advantages

The use of charcoal is widespread. It gained its popularity due to its positive qualities:

• no pollution of the environment;
• there is no emission of carbon monoxide, since there is no sulfur and phosphorus in the coal;
• minimum waste - coal burns out completely;
• coal will give off a lot of heat;
• completely recovers.

Consider the options for making coal with your own hands.

Method of obtaining in the pit

It is this method that can be put in the first place, since our ancestors used it.

It will be laborious for one person to make charcoal, call helpers - together it will go faster.

You need to start by digging a small hole, which should turn out to be cylindrical with strictly vertical walls. It will bake. If you want to get about two bags of coal, then the pit furnace should have a diameter of 70 to 80 cm and a depth of at least 50 cm.

In order for the finished raw materials to be sufficiently clean, without admixture of earth, the bottom of the resulting pit must be tamped, this can be done with your feet.

Then you need to make a fire in the pit, while do not add any chemistry to the fire, use dry birch bark, small branches and the like for lighting.

You need to watch the fire and periodically throw dry wood into the tongues of flame. The entire bottom of the pit should be covered with burning wood.

You need to start burning only when the fire is well lit. You can add pre-prepared wood to it, which will later turn into coal. For convenience, it is better to cut the firewood into pieces no longer than 30 cm.

It's important to know: firewood for coal must be barked off. Raw materials from it are still of low quality, and even when burning, it smokes a lot.

Firewood must be laid out in layers: when the first layer has already burned out, lay the next one. It is important to stack the wood tightly together. The pit should gradually fill up to the top with firewood.

After that, the pit with the contents must be carefully covered with grass and foliage, then pour a little earth and tamp it very well. After 24 hours, sift the resulting coal.

Barrel cooking

This is a fairly common method of making coal with your own hands. Use a thick-walled barrel for this method.

Inspect the barrel to see if it is clean, what was in it before, and if it has been used to store chemicals. This barrel cannot be used!

If oil products were placed in the barrel, then it can be cleaned. For this, the barrel must be burnt out. There are two ways to cook charcoal in a barrel.

The first way

The whole process is very similar to the method of producing coal in a pit. If there is a sufficiently large container with a volume of 100 to 200 liters, then it is important to ensure that the stacked firewood does not extinguish the fire.

To avoid spontaneous extinguishing of the fire in the barrel, install 5-6 strong refractory bricks on its bottom. Make a fire between them and start laying small branches, dry birch bark and other similar material. This should be done until the coals are close to the top of the bricks. Next, you need to install the grill on the bricks.

Already on the grate, you can put the main logs, from which the necessary raw materials will be obtained. The wood, again, needs to be laid as tightly as possible, in rows. Do this until they fill the barrel to the top. Now you need to wait until tongues of fire break out to the surface. When this happens, cover the barrel with a sheet of iron.

Do not cover tightly, leave a small gap and continue to follow the process. When the smoke turns gray, close the barrel tightly. After the barrel has completely cooled down, the coals can be removed.

Second way

If for some reason the first method seemed inconvenient, then use the second, which consists of the following steps:

• put the wood for coal tightly to the top and close it with an iron lid;
• leave a few small openings for gases to escape;
• put the barrel on a few stacked bricks on a metal sheet;
• make a fire between the bricks and heat the barrel.

Note: the temperature inside the container must be brought to 350 degrees Celsius. Therefore, the holes in the lid need small ones. To burn through a container of 20 liters on charcoal, in general, it will take about 2.5 hours.

After the fire is lit and the barrel is hot enough, the wood starts burning. Gas escapes through pre-provided holes.

After the gases escape, the barrel must still be held over the fire. After the expiration of 2.5 hours, the barrel is removed from the fire, and the holes in the lid are hermetically sealed. Now you need to wait until the barrel and its contents have completely cooled down.

Thanks to all of the above methods, you can independently make charcoal in your country house. However, there is one more important point worth noticing. Charcoal also has two grades. If it is made of hard wood, then this is class A, and if it is made of soft, then class B.

Watch a video in which an experienced user explains how to make DIY charcoal:

Charcoal is a porous mass of lustrous black, shimmering blue. DIY charcoal can be made if necessary. It is a unique material, the most ancient type of fuel. But besides this, he has a lot of useful qualities.

Charcoal properties

Areas where charcoal is widely used:

• Household sphere
• Chemical industry
• Metallurgy
• Agriculture
• Blacksmith craft

And this list is not yet complete.

Important: all over the world, charcoal is considered the main energy source.

Coal is capable of perfectly absorbing moisture; it relieves the room of unpleasant odors and toxic chemical compounds; cleans water from unnecessary impurities; protects food from spoilage. Activated charcoal, which is often purchased freely at the pharmacy for stomach problems. In short, it is indeed a useful product in almost every respect.

How to make charcoal yourself

In fact, the production of charcoal with your own hands is a rather multifaceted process, with many nuances and methods. But there is one, the simplest and most accessible to absolutely everyone, and therefore universal. It's about burning wood in a pit.

Finding a suitable pit location is very important here. In the city near the house, corrections should be made for the wind, the presence of trees around and everything that can accidentally catch fire. In the forest, it is enough to simply find an open place, in a country house - the same thing.

Important: firewood should be small.

A round pit is dug with a simple shovel. Its depth is in direct proportion to the amount of raw materials. The walls should be made as vertical as possible. The bottom must be tamped down so that the earth does not mix with the coal.

Then, at the bottom, a fire is made of twigs, gradually adding fuel until the pit at the bottom completely flames up. Now you can throw the harvested firewood. It is better to stack them more tightly, as the fire starts to flare up. It will take about 2 to 4 hours for everything to burn out. Here the type of wood, moisture, thickness of the logs matter.

When everything burned out and the fire went out, the pit must be closed tightly. Someone is laying it with a sheet of metal, someone with turf, the main thing is to ensure tightness. You can open everything in about a day, when the coals have cooled. Unnecessary impurities are removed by sifting the coal through a sieve.

Charcoal for barbecue and flowers

Few people dislike grilled meat. In addition to the correct marinade and other tricks, there are also nuances associated with coal. Although it has long been possible to buy charcoal in briquettes, it never hurts to learn how to make charcoal for the barbecue with your own hands.

The main thing here is to have enough material on hand. Coal can be burned in a pit, as described above, or you can take a galvanized barrel. By the way, getting coal is still half the battle. You need to know how to kindle it. To do this, on the bottom of the barbecue, the coal is laid in a thin even layer and poured over with a liquid for ignition. Then the coal can be added, sprinkled again and wait a little until the liquid disappears. Now you can set it on fire.

And this is far from the only place where charcoal can be successfully used. For example, you can make DIY charcoal for flowers. This is an excellent drainage that saves plants from dying when overflowing water. Natural antiseptic, it absorbs salts and prevents the roots from rotting. It is usually placed in a pot at the bottom with a 2 cm layer.

And since it is always better to see more than once than to hear a hundred, for clarity, it is proposed to look at different options for cooking coal on your own. Diy charcoal video

Today, the issue of natural biofuels is very relevant. One of the types of biofuels is charcoal. Charcoal production can be produced both in large enterprises and at home.

Charcoal is a natural biofuel, it is 90% pure carbon. Such fuel is absolutely safe for humans and the environment. Charcoal is used both in large enterprises, for heating and for production, and for home use. They can be used to heat a stove or fireplace, used in a blacksmith's, as well as for making barbecue.
Any type of wood, both hard and soft, can be used to make charcoal. It is important that the wood is dry, as damp wood will not burn and free of bark, since the bark smokes a lot and reduces the quality of the resulting coals.

How to make charcoal?

Large enterprises use special equipment for charcoal, these are large furnaces. At such enterprises, they are made for sale, but it costs a lot. And if you are going to heat the house with charcoal, then it will result in a pretty penny.
Therefore, the question arises whether it is possible to make charcoal at home?
Definitely yes. Such coal, of course, will come out of a lower quality than the factory one, but it will cost you much less.
How is charcoal made? Charcoal production consists in the process of pyrolysis of wood, that is, combustion at a high temperature, but without air access. This process prevents the tree from completely collapsing.
Making coal at home can be done in two ways:
- production of charcoal in a pit
- production of charcoal in a barrel
- production of charcoal in a furnace

This is one of the oldest methods of charcoal burning known to man. This method was used by our ancestors. This method is quite simple.
How to make charcoal in a pit?
To do this, you need to dig a hole in the shape of a cylinder. The depth of the pit should be within half a meter, and the diameter should be about 70-80 centimeters. The bottom of the pit must be tamped tightly so that the coals do not mix with the loose soil. From such a pit, you will receive up to two bags of coal and spend approximately three hours of time. After the pit is ready at the bottom, it is necessary to make a fire from thin, small branches and firewood.

The bottom of the pit should be densely covered with coal. Next, we put the prepared firewood into the fire. It is better to chop the firewood into pieces of no more than 40 centimeters in advance. In the course of combustion, fresh firewood must be placed on top. When the pit is completely filled with coals, it must be tightly covered with grass and leaves, sprinkled and tamped with earth. And leave in this state until it cools completely, for about two days. After that, the coal must be carefully sieved and put into containers for further storage.

How to make charcoal in a barrel

For the manufacture of charcoal, any metal barrel or cylindrical container with dense walls is suitable. The size can be absolutely any, depending on the amount of the final product that you want to receive. The barrel may not be new, but clean.
Bokeh charcoal production can be done in two ways:
- the first method is not much different from the production of coal in a pit. At the bottom of the barrel, bricks are placed among them, a fire is made, so that the burnt coals fill the space between the bricks, then a grate is placed on the bricks and firewood is already placed on it. When the barrel is completely filled with wood, it is necessary to wait until the flames appear on the surface. As soon as they appear, the barrel is covered with a lid or a metal sheet, leaving a small gap, after waiting for the appearance of gray smoke, the barrel should be sealed and not touched until it cools completely. After the barrel has cooled over. It only remains to pack it. Some of the firewood from the top of the barrel may not be burned, this is not a problem. These logs can be reused.
- The second method of producing charcoal in a barrel is a little more difficult in terms of process control. A fire is made directly under the barrel, and the barrel itself is placed on a bricks platform. The wood is tightly packed into the barrel, after which it is hermetically closed, there are only openings for the outlets of gas, which is formed during the oxidation of wood. The barrel should be left on fire for 2-3 hours, after which the fire should be extinguished and the barrel should be allowed to cool completely.

Charcoal production in a kiln

If you need a very small amount of charcoal, for example, for fertilizing plants or making barbecue, then you can use a conventional stone oven. To do this, the firewood is placed in the oven, the dampers and blowers are closed, allowed to burn out for 10-15 minutes and transferred to a hermetically sealed container, preferably ceramic.

Undoubtedly, the process is laborious at home and there is no guarantee that everything will work out. After missing one moment, you can simply burn more than one batch of firewood. But be patient and after a few, albeit unsuccessful attempts, you will be satisfied with yourself having made good charcoal with your own hands.

Next, your attention is invited to a video on how to make charcoal with your own hands.

Irina Zheleznyak, Special correspondent of the Internet edition "AtmWood. Wood-Industrial Bulletin"