Most often, charcoal is purchased; it is sold not only in specialized stores, but also at gas stations, as well as in supermarkets. But if you have a sufficient amount of your own firewood in the garden and have a little space near the fireplace, then at almost zero cost you can get charcoal yourself; it will not be a labor-intensive undertaking, nor will it take much time.
Organization of charcoal production at home
First you need to find some old bucket, barrel or large tin container. We will also need a piece of sheet metal with which we will cover the container. It will be useful if the selected, purchased container has some kind of “ears” or handles, thanks to which the container can be easily manipulated, moved and turned over. Using a drill, you need to make several holes at the bottom and sides (about 15-20 centimeters from the bottom of the barrel) of the container. Not far from the fireplace, we dig a small hole equal to the diameter of the selected container; we dig the depth to the level of the side holes.
We fill a tin container with unnecessary wood and place it on the fireplace with a grate; if there is none, you can use, for example, a couple of bricks or flat stones. Next, we light the wood waste contained in the container. We wait for the end of combustion, the wood will begin to slowly darken, but will not yet turn into coal. We put gloves on our hands so as not to get burned, use “ears” or carrying handles to move the container into the prepared hole, cover the barrel with a lid so that the smoke remains inside and maintains the temperature there and does not bother us. Leave for several hours, or better yet overnight (until the barrel cools down). In the morning, the container will contain ready-made, high-quality charcoal. It is no different from the one we buy in the store.
The entire process of producing charcoal (without preparing a container or place) takes approximately six to eight hours in absolutely unpretentious conditions, without special equipment. The production procedure can be modified in various ways. For example, immediately place the container in a dug hole with a small, strong mesh, then simply throw soil around the barrel to limit the access of air, then the lower fire will burn out.
Making charcoal at home usually requires the use of lumber from deciduous trees. The profitability of production depends on several factors, in particular on the capacity of the container, as well as our desire and hard work. In one process, you can get about five kilograms of coal from a standard-sized barrel!
When the need for natural biofuel arises, people rush to the store to buy charcoal. But the price of this product is very high; it’s one thing to buy a couple of bags for a barbecue, and another to provide such fuel for a fireplace in a city house.
Why in the city? Because in a rural house or cottage, fireplaces can be heated with wood, since they are equipped with chimneys and other necessary elements. But in a city apartment you can only make an electric fireplace or a charcoal fireplace, which does not require a chimney, but will serve more of a decorative function. However, if you know how to make charcoal, then the financial burden can be reduced to a large extent.
Making this type of fuel with your own hands is not so difficult; in this article we will reveal ways to make it at home.
Benefits of Charcoal
Charcoal is produced by pyrolysis, which involves heating wood without access to oxygen. It is used in various fields of human activity and has a number of remarkable properties:
It is for these reasons that people are increasingly thinking about how to make DIY charcoal. And many achieve amazing results.
Old-fashioned production method
This method is far from new. Our grandfathers also used it. There is nothing complicated in such production, and no additional investments are required. All you need is to prepare firewood and dig a cylindrical hole. The walls of the pit should be as steep as possible, its diameter should be about 80 cm, and its depth should be 50 cm.
The bottom of the pit is carefully compacted so that the loose soil does not mix with the finished charcoal. In the hole make a fire from dry branches and birch bark, without chemical ignition agents. When the entire bottom is covered with burning branches, the laying of prepared firewood, cleared of bark, begins.
As it burns, new portions of wood are added to the pit, this is done until the pit is completely filled. Typically, the process takes more than three hours. The hole filled to the brim is covered with leaves or green grass and covered with earth, which must also be compacted. It takes at least two days to cool, then the finished material is sifted and packaged for storage. That's exactly what happens making charcoal at home.
From one planting in such a pit you can get almost two bags of the finished product. Just in case, it should be noted that the quality of charcoal depends on the type of wood. Wood biofuel grade A is obtained from hardwoods, such as:
- maple;
- birch;
- oak and others.
Charcoal grade B is obtained from soft wood:
- poplar;
- aspen and others.
This is the simplest option for producing charcoal, but others are also known.
Application of a metal barrel
There is another option, how to make charcoal at home. It will require a thick metal barrel. It is very important to remember that the barrel must be clean; if chemicals were stored in it, then it is not suitable for our purposes. After storing petroleum products, the barrel is usually burned to clean it.
Fireproof bricks are placed at the bottom of the barrel, and a fire is built between them, which is maintained until the coals completely cover the height of the bricks. Now you need lay the lattice and wood on it in dense rows. Fill the container to the top and wait for the flames to appear. Now cover the top with a heavy sheet of iron, leaving a small gap.
If you want to speed up the process, make a small hole at the bottom of the barrel in advance and blow a little air into it (with a vacuum cleaner). However, this is not too important. Your task watch for changes in smoke color. As soon as it turns gray, the gap at the top must be closed. After this, the closed barrel stands quietly until it cools completely.
Making a small amount of charcoal
If you don’t need charcoal in bags, but you use it when transplanting flowers, for example, then you can do without clever methods. Provided, of course, that you have a dacha or house in the village with a wood-burning stove.
Arm yourself with stove (fireplace) coal tongs and a metal container with a tight lid. Now pull burnt but unbroken coals out of the stove red and put them in a container. Cover tightly and do not touch until completely cool. That's all, you already have coal for drainage in flowerpots.
Areas of use of charcoal
Charcoal is used for filtration, in rare cases for our country - in metallurgy, for the production of activated carbon and smelting crystalline silicon. In addition, it is used in agriculture and medicine. But for these purposes, charcoal is produced on an industrial scale.
For domestic use, it is suitable as fuel for fireplaces and stoves, as it produces uniform heat without flames. In this case, grade A hardwood charcoal is preferred. And, of course, barbecues and flowerpots, for which it is quite simple to produce biofuel at home.
It is best to light it without using chemicals. This will eliminate the unpleasant odor during the combustion process. Crumple up a sheet of paper and place thin wood chips around it like a hut. As the structure burns, add some firewood, and then lay out a pile of charcoal. After it has flared up, spread it over the bottom of the grill and wait until the flames disappear. The coals will become covered with a gray coating. That's it, you can cook meat.
In this article we told you how to make biofuel with your own hands. We hope this information will help you make them at home.
You can make charcoal with your own hands in a less labor-intensive way than by digging a hole. In my case, I use a 200-liter barrel and a vacuum cleaner, which has a positive effect on the result.
I started making charcoal because of the current situation, when one could only dream of coal, and especially coke, in our area. But this did not negate the fact that for forging it was still necessary to look for something.
Therefore, I decided to go along two lines of search that could lead to an alternative fuel to coal. I tried to work with domestic gas (gas furnaces), and tried to get my own charcoal, since buying it would cost me a lot of money. It helped that I had enough fruit trees. My neighbors in the country began to actively build cottages, for this they vacated construction sites, cutting down and uprooting dozens of trees, and happily giving them to me. However, after studying the issue of coal, I learned that firewood from freshly cut trees is not suitable for burning - you need wood that is well dried. Therefore, as a test, I started burning scraps of dried linden boards - by chance I had plenty of them.
How to make charcoal at home
As for the barrel, it is advisable to take a 200 liter barrel with thick walls. In the lower part, near the bottom, we cut in a fitting. In my case, I received a barrel from a neighbor - it already had a squeegee screwed into it, since it was used for a summer shower. Through the fitting I forced air into the barrel.
Here I used an old Soviet-made vacuum cleaner.
Connection to the barrel with a metal pipe.
As for the productivity and consumption of firewood: I use 3 barrels, the first is used for burning coal, the other two barrels are for ready-made chopped wood (when I fill the barrel with them, I shake it). This way I get a relative amount of firewood per batch of coal.
At the bottom of the barrel I make a small fire, and while it flares up, I add more wood.
Combustion should be monitored at all times. Over time, you will see when the moment comes where the firewood has flared up quite well through the blower, but has not burned down to ash - then you need to add the next portion of firewood. To maintain the required airflow, you should constantly turn the vacuum cleaner on and off. To look into the barrel, you may have to put something on the ground; due to the intense heat and smoke, you can’t really see anything. I made a stand out of a stack of rubber for the tracks.
To close the barrel, the easiest way is to take the original top lid - but I didn’t have one, so I adjusted a two-piece sheet for this. To cover all the holes through which air could enter the barrel, I used earth diluted with water until the solution was thick. I also sprinkled earth on the fitting at the bottom.
At the final stage of topping the firewood, there is always a risk that the lower layers of coal may be burned into ash, so I do not allow the wood in the upper layer to burn properly. Because of this, a certain amount of firewood goes to waste - for the next batch.
I do not open the barrel until it has cooled over the entire surface. If there are some barely warm places, it means something else is burning. Usually, when I seal the barrel hermetically in the evening, in the morning it will already be cold, which means it’s ready.
It is also convenient to receive coal in a barrel because it is convenient to unload it. To do this, you just need to turn the barrel over. After receiving the next batch of coal, the barrel ends up with a lot of ash and fine coal fractions. Before pouring coal into bags, I sift all the resulting coal.
Among the various types of solid fuel, charcoal, consisting of 80-90% pure carbon, is of particular interest. This makes it primarily an effective biofuel, virtually smokeless and environmentally friendly. Its scope of application is quite wide 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 conditions.
Production technology
Coal from wood is consumed in large volumes by metallurgical enterprises, where it is used to produce high-purity alloys, as well as to saturate the metal with carbon, resulting in an increase in its physical properties.
In the chemical industry, this product is used in the manufacture of glass, various plastics and even paints. Coal has not bypassed the food industry; in food products it often acts as a natural coloring agent, which is displayed on their packaging under the code E153.
Such significant demand requires corresponding production volumes, so charcoal stoves are usually located near or on the territory of wood processing enterprises. This is understandable, because there is a large amount of large waste wood of various species there, which serves as raw material for charcoaling.
To explain in simple words, the charcoal production technology is designed to solve the problem of obtaining carbon from wood to the highest possible degree of purity. To do this, all other organic and inorganic substances must be removed, which is achieved using a pyrolysis reaction. Its essence lies in the separation of all unnecessary compounds from raw materials by thermal decomposition in the presence of insufficient oxygen. But let's go in order.
There are four stages of the production process in total (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, which takes place 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 released;
- combustion (calcination) when heated to 500-550 ºС. At this stage, tars and residues of substances are released from the coal in the form of gases;
- recovery (cooling).
In essence, a coal production plant is a furnace where all the above reactions take place. The figure below shows a diagram of the technological process:
Charcoal stove
The charcoal oven is quite complex, and it is very difficult to replicate its design at home. The cylindrical or rectangular body has a combustion chamber, on top of which 2 closed containers filled with raw materials are loaded - retorts. The wood is heated from the outside, through the walls of the retort, and uses the heat generated by the wood during the reaction process. The operation of the furnace in various modes is shown in the diagram:
An industrial furnace for the production of charcoal is designed in such a way that while pyrolysis is taking place in one container, drying is taking place in the second, the pyrolysis gases are burned and pass through a retort with wet raw materials. This sequence 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 occurs:
After calcination, the containers with coal are unloaded and new ones are placed in the oven. Before packaging and sending to the warehouse, the product undergoes crushing to the required fraction size, and, if necessary, briquetting. The apparatus where all operations are carried out using this technology is a continuous charcoal production 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 charcoaling is of interest to those people who are involved in metal forging in small workshops. Clean biofuel such as charcoal has long been considered the best for the forge. Well, everyone has long known how good charcoal is for kebabs and barbecues, but buying it in a store is a little expensive. Based on the fact that equipment for the production of charcoal is complex, expensive and cumbersome, we will offer two methods that have long been proven by home craftsmen:
- burning coal in a barrel;
- charcoaling in a pit.
The method of producing coal in a barrel, as in a pit, involves the same technological process of pyrolysis in a confined space with a lack of oxygen. Only under such conditions the product is not so pure for obvious reasons. The skill of the performer also plays a big role; the first 2-3 portions can simply burn out (which happens more often) or, conversely, not burn out. But everything comes with experience.
The method of charcoaling in a barrel is considered more convenient and technologically advanced. So, to make charcoal yourself, you actually need a metal barrel with a capacity of 200 liters, and even an old vacuum cleaner. Any other cylindrical metal container will do, preferably with thick walls; it will last longer. A hole is drilled at the very bottom of the container and a fitting is inserted. A hose from a vacuum cleaner is connected to it; this will supply primary air to the combustion zone.
It is important to find an airtight lid for the barrel. If there is none, you need to adapt a sheet of metal, asbestos cement or other material for this purpose. You will also need a long steel poker for scooping firewood. Regarding the latter, it is worth noting one important point. Since charcoal is made at home using improvised means, the technology is not always followed, but it is necessary to withstand the low humidity of the firewood.
Important! Freshly cut wood or wood saturated with moisture is not suitable for charcoaling; there will be a lot of smoke, and the pyrolysis process will not begin or will proceed very sluggishly. As a result, you will end up with ash or unburned firewood. The wood must be dry.
The bark is removed from the tree (it smokes a lot, and produces very little coal) and sawed into logs up to 40 cm long, so that they are tightly placed in a barrel. Then light a small fire at its bottom and turn on the vacuum cleaner, otherwise the fire will start to smoke heavily.
As the firewood flares up, you need to add another portion. It should be noted that the production of charcoal in this way is a delicate process; here you need to correctly catch the moment when the raw material has flared up well, but not let it burn to ash, but 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 completed; you can open the lid only after the walls of the container have completely cooled. 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 unburnt, but it doesn’t matter, it will go to the next load. The rest of the coal is sifted and put into bags.
Charcoaling in a pit
You can make charcoal yourself at home or right in the forest simply 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 down with feet, and the walls are cleaned so that the fuel does not mix with the ground. The latter does not need to be thrown far, it will come in handy in the end. The difference with “barrel” burning is only in the absence of forced blowing with a vacuum cleaner. Dry firewood is taken, 30 cm long and no more than 7 cm in diameter, and a small fire is built from it at the bottom of the pit.
Further actions - as in the case of a barrel, raw materials are added as needed. A pit full of firewood is covered with leaves or grass, then covered with earth and compacted. You can come back for coal in 2 days, by which time it will definitely have cooled down.
Conclusion
Of course, charcoal burned by yourself cannot be compared in quality to factory-made fuel. But the requirements at home are not as high as in production; coal is quite suitable for a barbecue or forge. You just need to take care not to harm others from smoke or start a fire in the forest.
The coal that is mined in mines is also charcoal, the path of its formation is very long, it takes many millions of years until it becomes the coal that we see it. Until industry began to mine coal, only charcoal was used everywhere. The first metallurgy worked on it, samovars were melted with it, and every real blacksmith knew how to make charcoal with his own hands. The technology is quite simple and interesting.
Where is charcoal used?
Today, some areas of production cannot do without charcoal. It is used, for example, for the manufacture of: electrodes; glass and crystal products; some paints; gunpowder; a number of plastics; filters; for grinding parts; as an insulating material... Every adult and not only knows activated carbon tablets; they make fertilizer from it and use it as an additive to livestock feed. And from the resins that are released in parallel, rosin, acetic acid, turpentine, solvents and methyl alcohol are made.
Among the population, this type of fuel has become famous mainly in three areas: Blacksmiths highly value it (you can get better quality steel). Charcoal is an environmentally friendly way to heat a bathhouse, a cottage, or light a fireplace. For picnics, for grills, barbecues and bonfires. The quality of the coal used completely determines the taste of the food you are planning to cook at the fire. Charcoal is ideal for cooking over a fire.
Advantages 
It has many advantages at high temperature, the heat of charcoal is even, there is no smoke and open flame, and it does not ignite itself. Charcoal does not emit carbon monoxide, which makes it possible to use it in enclosed spaces.
If you take a portion of coal and firewood at the same time, it will flare up faster than firewood and will burn longer. When burned, charcoal does not release sulfur or phosphorus. After combustion there is practically no ash, it takes up little space during storage, and the heat transfer per kilogram is 31 thousand kJ. Coal can only be bought by paying a lot of money, and charcoal can be obtained from ordinary waste branches (boughs, roots, dead wood - that is, production waste).
Self-production
Packages of charcoal are sold on the market, and their prices are not low. But you can produce quite a lot of such fuel yourself, and the costs will be negligible. To prepare fuel, it is better to use hardwood (yes, I forgot, coal can be grades A, B, C.) To obtain grade A coal, birch wood gives rapid heat transfer and intense heat.
Oak gives uniform heat and a long burning process, beech, elm, hornbeam, pine, fir, spruce - we get grade B. Softwood (poplar, aspen, willow and linden... will give charcoal grade B.
Let's look at two “artisanal” production methods.
First method Cooking charcoal at home is cooking in a barrel. The following requirements are imposed on it: the walls of the barrel itself must be thick enough; if you have a barrel in which petroleum products were stored, then it must be burned out; if it contains toxic chemicals, such a barrel cannot be used. The barrel must have a lid made of non-flammable materials and that it tightly closes the container. Well, the size depends on the amount of raw material available and the availability of the barrel itself. What will it be? 
Sequence of work:
In order for gas to escape from the barrel, several holes need to be made in the lid, but so that they can be closed. We lay a sheet of metal on it to make a mini oven from several bricks, then we place the barrel on these bricks. We fill it to the top with waste from which we will make coal, and close it with a lid. We make a fire under the barrel in a mini stove, when our barrel gets very hot, gas begins to come out of the waste wood, all this lasts from 2-3 hours. After this time, we put out the fire and close the holes in the lid. Then we leave the barrel alone for two days. This method of producing charcoal is convenient, inexpensive, and difficult to control the process itself. If this mining process is done for the first time without experience, it is possible to overburn or underburn the coal.
Second extraction method charcoal in the pit. This mining method is more open, which means there should be fewer errors. We choose an open place, preferably closer to the forest, where there are many branches and twigs. Dimensions of the hole: it should be cylindrical in shape and have a diameter of about 80 cm, clay 50 cm. We dug a hole, now we compact the base (bottom) well. Such a pit will yield about two bags of coal. 
Sequence of work.
First, we prepare the raw materials, clear everything of bark, and cut it into logs, they should be no thicker than 7 cm and up to 30 cm long. We build a fire, a large fire, along the entire bottom of the pit. Then we throw the main raw material tightly, but try to compact it so that it can still flare up. After two and a half, three hours, when the hole is full, add a layer of leaves or green grass on top, and then a layer of earth. We tamp it firmly and leave it for two days, during which time our fire along with the coal will cool down. Remove the layer of soil, select the coal and sift it.
Furnaces for the production of charcoal
The market offers special furnaces for the production of coal without oxygen. The burning process in such furnaces is carried out in several stages. First, the raw materials are tightly packed into retorts, then they are sent to the drying department, after which they are moved to the pyrolysis compartment. The firebox is ignited, the temperature is brought to certain parameters, and the pyrolysis process begins. After the process is completed, the retort is removed and cooled, and another from the drying compartment is fed into the pyrolysis compartment and so on along the chain. Such a furnace does not stop; the process occurs continuously as long as there are raw materials and the need for further extraction of charcoal. The last, final stage is the packaging of coal. The stove is not dependent on power supply; it only needs room lighting.
In conclusion, I would like to note that as a business, charcoal mining is a troublesome and time-consuming business. You can do it for yourself just for fun.