I always get really excited when I discover that some of the more common household items can actually be homemade. Case in point when we made the homemade apple juice recipe and the homemadee doritos recipe, in previous posts. I recently made the awesome discovery online on how to make your own charcoal.
Contrary to popular belief, it is not just a matter of burning some wood, and then collecting the burnt place pieces that remain. Even so, it is not a difficult process to replicate. Instead of using wood, you can then use your homemade charcoal for your barbecues or even in your diy water filters.
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Here’s What You’ll Need:
- old 55 gallon metal oil drum
- smaller 20 gallon metal drum
- wood logs
- newspaper
- small wood
- matches or lighter
Step By Step Instructions
Step 1.
Cut off the top of your old drum.
Step 2.
Cut out about 3 to 5 vents in the bottom of
the drum, these will allow for ventilation.
Step 3.
Fill the smaller drum with wood logs.
Step 4.
Lay the bigger drum on its side, and then
carefully slide in the small one turned over.
Make sure the smaller one is centered.
Step 5.
Light your fire in the bottom of the bigger
drum on one side, through one of the vents.
Step 6.
Add more wood around the sides, to spread
the fire all around the bottom of the drum.
Step 7.
Leave to burn for at least 3 hours and then
allow both drums to cool before handling.
The best type of wood to use for this are hardwoods, we are talking about chestnut, fir etc. The process heats up the wood in the smaller drum, cooks the wood and does not actually burn it. This is because although flammable gases are present in the smaller drum there is no air that actually goes in. Find a nice dry place to store your charcoal, ready for its next use.
You can watch the video below on making charcoal the easy way…
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