Making Charcoal? Heat Management Discuss Making Charcoal? in the Oven Management forums; Has anyone intentionally used their WFO to make charcoal? I get bits of charcoal when I shut down the fire ...

[Xabia Jim]

Has anyone intentionally used their WFO to make charcoal?

I get bits of charcoal when I shut down the fire in the oven and understand that the process of making charcoal involves a similar process of par cooking wood in a kiln type arrangement.

It seems that it would be pretty easy to throw in a bunch of wood after Pizza or Roasting and just close it up and cover the chimney....thoughts?

Jim

PS.....Did you know that the old Kingsford Charcoal plant in Michigan was originally a Ford Motor plant that made charcoal from recycling the wood scraps left over from the early wood frames and car parts (like woodies)?

[Inishta]

There is no reason that I can think of that you would not be able to make charcoal in the oven although I think that you would need to remove the moisture from the wood before closing completely. The wood will produce white smoke as the water content is driven off. When the smoke turns blue sealing the oven will stop the burn and should produce charcoal.

[dmun]

Google to the rescue!

Here's a page about making charcoal, using a 55 gallon drum as a retort, and recycling the volatile gases from the process to fuel it:



The flammable gas produced leads to a question of what would happen to it if you just baked the wood in a closed chamber. Hmmm.

[jengineer]

I can just imagine doing this in the city of Los Angeles.!