Got my first batch of homemade charcoal going

I haven't given up yet. Had a lot yard cleaning to do today after all that wind and rain yesterday. Been doing a little more researching and have made a few changes. I've also got those nosey arse neighbors too. Hopefully I will have sometime this weekend to mess with again..... I will make charcoal!!!

The last few days I have been researching and watching You tube videos and pondering. So here is what I came up with next. I used the same two barrels from before. Built a rack out of some old round stock I had laying around. Put that in the bottom of the big barrel to raise the retort part so I could have room for a fire underneath. Cut the lid of the big barrel to fit tightly around retort barrel to hold the heat in around the retort part. Cut a hole in top of retort and ran 3/4" black pipe out and down and back in to where fire is and drilled 1/4" holes in the length of it.


After about 2 1/2 hours of burning, finally started getting water vapors which lasted about 2 hours and then the I heard the jet engine sound. I finally got it hot enough for the pyrolysis to take effect/ burning of the wood gasses. Couldn't get a good picture of that process, but you can see how hot and red the stand and bottom of the retort/ barrel is. That was from the gasses burning coming out of the pipe.

I'm glad I'm not afraid to put my processes out when I'm not sure it's going to work or not. I'm going to let it cool off over night and after kids ball game in the am I will check it out and hopefully I will show y'all some charcoal. If not, I will show you again what not to do.

After a long wait, I checked it and seems that my contraption worked this time only thing I need to change next time to make the pieces smaller. The smaller ones I had turned into charcoal which is the pile in front and larger ones in the back only the outside of them charred. It's was a lot fun to try to figure this out and I learned a few things, mainly what don't work but I'm going split down the the pieces that didn't work and do it again. Thanks everyone for checking out my process. I hope I've been able to inspire someone to try it..