[Sca-cooks] Making wood charcoal

[Stefan li Rous]

Sharon asked:
> Has anyone made their own real wood charcoal?
> Tips? Suggestions? Warnings? Dire warnings :-) ?

I've only done it on a very small scale. A sealed tin can, with a small 
hole punched in the top, filled with sawdust and placed on top of the 
range. In that case, you want to light the gases coming out through the 
hole to burn them off.

There is a British company which makes a number of small pamphlets on 
various heritage crafts. I can't remember the company right now, but I 
seem to remember that they had one on charcoal making.

Although I don't think there is much 'how-to' info in it, you might 
find this file in the COMMERCE section of the Florilegium to be of 
interest:
charcoal-msg     (29K) 9/28/01   Use and making of charcoal in period.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/COMMERCE/charcoal-msg.html

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****