Why charcoal is the first great cooking fuel
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
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UN FAO manual on charcoal production in the developing world: www.fao.org/4/...
Doing this whole episode in a bright white t-shirt is a hell of a power move
Hyneman's Law. The dirtier the job, the less likely the stain on the white shirt.
@@SimuLordHyneman, as in Jamie Hyneman? Haven't heard that one before, and can't find it with a quick Google search.
@@nattherman7321 The very same. Not actually an eponymous law (unless it catches on from my silly internet comment), more a verbal gimmick/reference template for fans of Mythbusters to noodle out themselves.
The 90's called and want their stone washed Levi's back!
He must have a walk in closet fully stocked up.
Regarding that "dig a pit" method, don't do it anywhere near any trees. Or if you see tree roots at the side of your hole. Those can catch on fire and smolder underground for some weeks or even months after you did it, until you've got a flaming tree in your back yard for apparently no reason.
Came to say this. As soon as I saw him burying a fire like that, my inner Boy Scout kicked in.
@@pirateofms good to know, didn't even know this was a possibility
And if not that, you get a dead tree falling on your house.
would love to see a video of that
@@fallonsky_ It's a big issue in places with wildfires. The BBC did an article about them in canada under the name "Why Canada is riddled with wildfires that burn year-round"
One of my favourite channels on UA-cam. The ever-so-slightly manic Bob Ross of food adjacent mini-docs.
Adam Ragusea is the Bob Ross of youtube.
Steve Mould made a video on coal, most of it comes from a specific time in history when plants had evolved into trees making wood, but the bacteria hadn't caught up and didn't know how to break it down. Interesting stuff!
"Why almost all coal was made at the same time" by Steve Mould, if anyone wants to watch it
I'm not sure about that conclusion. Bacteria was some of the first living creatures on land.
@@nickeypetersen5622some of the first yes but the kinds that break down wood, which was new on the scene, hadn’t evolved into existence yet.
@@nickeypetersen5622 and lignin was a new thing and requires specific enzymes to break down. enzymes that hadn't evolved yet.
which is why all coal that exists formed during a few million years.
@TheCosmokramer1 maybe. It's really a guessing problem with common sense and logic follow😊. At least we try👍
9:52 - So, about dousing charcoal with water to activate it. Producing activated carbon from superheated steam requires really high temperatures and sustained influx of hot steam for quite some time before the carbon becomes adequately activated, so just dousing hot charcoal with water wouldn't do much to activate it. It would increase the surface area a tiny little bit, since some of that water would react with the carbon whilst it's hot enough to do so, but since that period of time lasts only a few seconds at most, it wouldn't do much to increase the internal surface area, which is what you need to do to make activated charcoal. The steam expansion might also increase the surface area a little bit too, but nowhere near properly activated charcoal.
Yep.
Another perspective: raw charcoal isn't inactive, just _less_ active. You don't have to steam it, along any particular time/temp/rate curve; it just gets (significantly) better at it. Cody's Lab did a comparison a while ago, measuring the absorption of iodine from a solution. Ah, here it is: v=GNKeps6pIao
another tid bit regarding activated carbon filtering, if your carbon is activated (cleaned) properly, the molecules of the liquid you filter through it (50% abv alcohol in my case) cause enough friction that the tube you contain the carbon in gets HOT to the touch, not warm, HOT. if you don't clean (activate) it properly, it doesn't get very hot. I thought that was pretty cool.
@@thevnbastid1027 Not friction, heat of adsorption. The energy of all those molecules sticking to the crevices is individually minuscule (dunno, fractional eV per molecule, maybe a few for larger ones?), but the surface area is _just that large_ it gets hot!
Conversely, as much heat is required to reactivate it i.e. desorb the junk. Charcoal can be reused more or less indefinitely (I think?) as long as it doesn't get physically clogged, or otherwise reacted with, and the stuff containing it can handle the heat (i.e. plastic cartridges would melt, lol). (Silica gel is the same way, but having a stronger preference for water. Gel beads are commonly removed and baked for reusable inline drying application, like compressed air supply.)
@ ok. I was using coconut shell carbon and it did crumble to dust being handled
My favorite Primitive Technology vids are when John makes a huge batch charcoal in a mud oven, highly recommend
That is like, half of the videos he's ever made. I love them all, but it shows how important charcoal is lol
He released a video today too! And yup, made charcoal!
Watch his videos first without subtitles, then a second time with for the explanations. Good stuff!
I wish Adam had name checked that channel. Hehe
ua-cam.com/video/ISU97qNFwq0/v-deo.html
@@marpintadoI'm surprised you're actually able to post a link
A really cool balance between "accessible for most technology levels" and "pretty efficient" would be like what the Primitive Technology channel does with his mud charcoal kilns.
Stack a bunch of branches upright in a cone or tipi shape, coat the exterior with thick mud. Dig out a few vents at the bottom to allow air flow. Take off the top of the cone and start a fire at the top of it, allowing it to burn down from top to bottom. Keep a watch on the bottom vents, and when you see flames in one, seal it with mud. When all the vents are sealed, cover the top as well, and let it sit until it's cool.
Probably the quintessential classic method for creating charcoal in bulk.
Very cool method - thanks! Also, remember to season while you're cooking (and...taste?) 😂
I mean in the 1700s they would lay logs in giant pits, light them, and cover them in dirt.
lol he JUST posted another one, insane how many time's we watch this guy do the same exact thing over and over.
ua-cam.com/video/ISU97qNFwq0/v-deo.html
In Finland tar used to be a major export and a byproduct of its production is charcoal. The process for creating tar is dry distillation, which is the same process adam used for making his charcoal. Back in the day people would make tar kilns by digging holes in the ground inside which pine logs would be stacked in a dome shape and the wood was covered with dirt and moss. The sap from the logs would boil away and turn into tar which then pooled at the bottom of the kiln, leaving behind charcoal. Its a super interesting practice which is still done this day as a tourist attraction.
Youre wrong.
That's an interesting sales pitch.
@@lyanxx You should really add more to your comment so people know what you're talking about. Just saying "You're wrong" doesn't elucidate anything for people reading this thread.
@@lyanxx Dude, there are plenty of videos showing this precise process.
@@lyanxx true i am i made all of that up
There’s no way Adam references the use of a dry herb vaporizer as a way to intake weed without combustion the same week I buy a dry herb vaporizer. This guys timing never fails
Good to see you've got your mojo back again Adam. It's been coming over the last few videos, but that was back to full on enthusiasm. You're good at this and it's enjoyable to watch.
your content after 'retiring' is so entertaining!
ohhh no longer teaching so doesn't have to lard his videos with hurr durr white ppl are so dumb
hank hill unsubscribes
Gorgeous pfp
omg haruhi
...and takes his propane accessories with him 😂
@authentic229.14 i fucking adore noizi ito's work you have no idea
I would argue with you that, propane and propane accessories might be a extremely valuable method of making charcoal. That's the speed bump,.... er... hill that I'm willing to die on.
I make charcoal out of yard scraps (fruit tree prunings, windfalls, etc) with a simple pyrolysis still. Just an old steel garbage can, packed with wood scraps, with two holes drilled in. You can distill the volatile fractions out through the holes so it doesn't make a bomb. Since pyrolysis is an exothermic reaction, once you get it going it will go to completion. Just build a fire around the can and keep it going for a couple of hours. The end result is really good charcoal.
Thanks for sharing! This seems like basically making biochar, the stuff gardening people sometimes add to their soil. As Adam was talking, I was wondering if a steel garbage can would work, and now I'm wondering about trying it myself.
0:34 anyone who time travels to show charcoal to ancient people before they discovered charcoal gets Adams whole house! In his own words
Is that a promise?
@nziom I'll find a way. Promise
1:29 it doesn't burn cleaner than the sweet lady propane, I'll tell you what
I don't think there's a propane way back at the time he was talking about
Damn it Bobby
I like the blue grass song Propane, sung to the melody of Cocaine written by JJ Cale.
alcohol:
A clean burn adds no flavor.
Tip: You can use the Steel Box method of making charcoal inside a wood stove if you had one. My grandfather and stepgrandmother had a cabin/small farm in Colorado and did this. My grandfather just took an old paint can, washed it out, and stripped off the label (if the label is glossy, that isn't just paper. It contains plastic to make it glossy. I don't recommend buring plastic inside your house, but it's your body and your life). He then just punched a few holes in the lid with an awl, and put lots of branches and twigs inside of it. He then had a reusable vessel, and whenever they had a fire in their wood stove- just about every day from October to May, they made a little charcoal. My stepgrandmother then had lots of charcoal to add to her garden, as her compost was "green heavy"- that is to say the household and farm waste contained too much nitrogen from decaying leaves/veggies, coffee grounds, animal manure, etc. and she needed to add more "browns" or carbon to balance it. Charcoal is perfect for that. You can even turn animal bones into biochar with this method, which is a good way to add both carbon and minerals such as phosphates and calcium to your garden. The paint can only lasted about a winter season before the can became to rusty to use (who knew fire is such a great oxidizer?) and my grandfather would make a new one. Sometimes he would even buy cookies in a steel box "because he had nothing to paint" (he had a sweet tooth).
Actually Adam I went back in time with my time machine and gave them a bag of charcoal, so that was the first charcoal they had back in the day. I'll take your house now sir
Time travel's cheaper than buying a house? Man, the housing market is terrible.
got em! If I were you I'd travel forward in time now to after he's given you the house. Woot!
Aw crap, you got there first before me :(
@@yuhaturi3329 my bad
@@jasonkeith2832🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Cody from Cody'sLab did a mini-series, "Will it Charcoal?", where he used a couple of cans in the tin method you showed, only with an extra layer to keep more oxygen out. He was able to charcoal things other than wood, such as insects, and flowers, without disturbing their structure!
Folks, let me tell you, I’ve seen charcoal-great charcoal, tremendous charcoal-but this one here is absolutely fantastic. It’s BEAUTIFUL, it’s CLEAN, they say it’s the best. Many people are telling me, ‘this charcoal is the greatest thing for grilling since fire itself!’ And I have to agree. Believe me. A total winner!
I would know, I have the finest charcoal around. Everyone says that about me
This sounds so familiar. Matter of fact, are we putting a tariff on coal if it doesn't join in with the dumpster fire? 😁
Those people cried when they told you, didn't they?
2:45 AFAIK, the current theory on why they didn't decompose is that microbes and fungi hadn't yet evolved the ability to decompose lignin.
9:52 - Hey Adam, about the crude activation of charcoal you mentioned, I'm not an expert by any means, but Cody’sLab made a video on making activated carbon at home. He said that oxygen can activate charcoal, but pure oxygen, or oxygen air reacts immediately with the carbon on the surface, taking away layers of carbon at once, which doesn't increase the surface area much. However, using superheated steam can be used to activate charcoal, since the reducing surface of hot charcoal breaks the water vapour down into hydrogen and carbon monoxide, but there's a delay. Due to this delay, the water vapour can get inside the pores before decomposing and reacting with the carbon, and this greatly increases the surface area inside the pores of the charcoal because it causes pitting. Carbon monoxide reacting with the carbon is also a lot less vigorous than oxygen; it 'etches' away little bits of carbon rather than reacting all at once like oxygen would. This is one of the ways in which activated carbon is produced industrially. That said, Cody had to heat his charcoal to really high temperatures and continuously feed in steam for hours to properly activate it. Just dousing the charcoal with water would increase the surface area a tiny little bit, whilst the charcoal is hot enough, and the rapid steam expansion might also increase the surface area a little bit as well. But, the increase in surface area would be miniscule compared to actual activated carbon.
2:55 not only that Adam but a lot if animals and fungi that eat or digest wood didn't evolve yet AND the trees were all huge.
What a blessed Thursday this is
I didn't know ~why~ charcoal was so important until I heard the Eastern Forests episode of *Well, There's Your Problem* , taking about the deforestation of the midwestern states. "But wait a minute, those states don't HAVE any forests!" Exactly. MILLIONS of acres of trees cut down, for charcoal, for smelting and industry in the 1700 and 1800s.
My ancestors (on my father's side) actually participated in this. Would go from forest to forest, making charcoal wherever the wood was. They'd make giant piles, cover them in clay, and let them burn to make charcoal. Very similar to the method Primitive Technology uses, that others in the comments mentioned, just on a massive scale.
There's a rather gruesome story about one of the workers who, while crawling on top of the piles to check for leaks (air getting in would ruin the charcoal), had the entire dome collapse under them and engulfed them in flames as they fell into the burning coals. Terrible 3rd degree burns over the entire body. He was rescued and did live... for about three days, until infection got to him. Yeah. Life back then was rough.
Adam casually saying "Lauren and I vape dank nugs" was not on my cards for 2025. Womp.
Not surprising though. They both fit the profile of young hipster secular vape types. Nothing wrong with that. It's legal for the most part. Not so different from regularly having a few beers or cocktails, and better than the idiotic cigarettes.
@@charliedoyle7824 Not surprising at all, I just didn't expect it. He seemed more health-conscious than that.
Yeah I'm not surprised they use dry herb vapes, the nerdiest way to use cannabis. Now I want to see a whole video about it.
@@YungStinkyWinky He seems to have concluded that vaping isn't so bad for his lungs, which is mostly true. Lots of us concluded that when vaping first became a thing. It's far less damaging than the old bong or pipe methods. Vaping burns the good drug molecules into a cool vapor without creating much smoke, so it does have parallels to making charcoal, using just the right temperature to only burn the intended molecules.
I was looking for this comment xDDDDDD
You should dig all the coal out of that coal room and use the big pit in the middle as a pond like that one dude you made a video about.
cistern eel pit guy!!!!
@cowturtle , they've collaborated before!
11:46 thought he was about to take a bite out of it lol
Me too lmao
Fun side note, charcoal (aka biochar) is a fantastic way to store carbon and get it out of the carbon cycle. It has massively good uses in gardening soil health as well. That stuff is magical in a particular way.
@@FirstnameLastname-bp5cmIt’s not. Not really. It just delays it a bit. Wet charcoal will decompose with air and then the carbon is right back in the sky.
@@mzaite I’ve only seen estimates ranging at. or above, about 1000 years or so. If you’ve seen research indicating it doesn’t last very long at all I’d like to check that out for sure.
@@FirstnameLastname-bp5cmCharcoal used to be a good store of carbon... until humans realized it made steaks taste good!
I like Adam's recipe videos. I LOVE his history and speculative linguistics videos.
Worth noting Probiotics can be helpful for gut bacteria but mostly only after a test is done and a prescription for what your body needs is filled. Taking generic prebiotic is not likely to cause problems, but it can cause a monopoliziation of one specific bacteria which will only make your digestion worse. I.E unless you know what you need generic probiotic are not necessarily helpful.
In other words, another shady youtube sponsor
Yogurt is much cheaper and you can still good gut bacteria from it.
adam is in my dream blunt rotation
some fun points about charcoal -
as you mentioned, that smoke is super flammable, and people noticed that. Its now called "Wood Gas" (wow how creative) and it its self is captured and used as a fuel like you might with propane. This process literally gives you 2 different types of biofuel at the same time. assuming you burn it clean, its a great carbon-neutral duo.
Next, you mentioned its porosity, well its also used for the processing of sugar to make granulated sugar, however at some point someone noticed that making charcoal out of the already porous structure of bones makes it even better, leading to "bonechar" so now we non-vegetarian granulated sugar to look out for if you dont like that sort of thing (maybe you can take comfort in the fast they are probably all thats left over so its not as bad as eating meat or wearing leather..?)
Charcoals porosity and otherwise chemical inert nature also lets it soak things up such as poisons. it is often given to be consumed when somone has eaten something poisonous (though I dont know how effective that is or what sort of chemicals it works with). it can also be mixed in with compost to make a sponge for neutrients to keep them retained in the soil for longer and let plants absorb them later down the line, this is known as "biochar" I think. CodysLab has some good vids on this. It could also be a good way to capture carbon and bury it in the ground long term as, without fire to burn it, it wouldnt have any real way to be broken down and released back in to the air, essentially reversing the carbon releasing process of burning fossil fuels by putting that carbon back in underground stores of sorts.
Adam actually have a video from quite a ways back on Wood Gas.
@@DreadKyller hype, I will go find it in the pits of the videos list then, lmao
The neat thing about charcoal is that it works against most poisons - so long as they are still in your stomach. The basic principle is that, due to activated charcoals high absorptivity, it just kinda sucks up everything in your stomach and binds it to itself rather than your body absorbing it. There's a neat party trick where if you take a couple activated charcoal pills in the process you can drink pretty much anyone under the table.
Of course it doesn't help you much if you already absorbed a bunch of the poison
@@LenaMel Though you should still be careful, some poisons don't get inactivated by activated charcoal, eg bleach.
This is a fantastic video! I don’t know why but I haven’t seen your content in a minute and so many people left and right are so politic right now it was truly refreshing to have a bite sized science video and extra points cause the whole time you kept me thinking “I could do that.”
I also heat with wood. When I'm going to start another fire, I first sift all the charcoal out of the previous fire's ashes and make a bed with it to start the new fire on. It gets the new fire to a mature stage much faster and with much less effort than starting entirely from scratch.
2:56 not necessarily because it fell in a swamp or something like that, but because at the time there wasn't any organism with an enzyme capable of digesting lignin
Of course Adam owns a coal dungeon
The coal has been siezed for its crimes
Brits would call it a burny lump majesty's room
Greetings from Malaysia. Street food vendors here have virtually moved to cooking on gas burners, however, there is a small percentage who still uses charcoal. And charcoal cooked food is amazing!
Those low-exposure shots are soooo nice, raking the coals while they're glowing in a sea of blackness. Love it.
I love how you dropped herb vaporizers! My favorite way to consume 😂
Well this was a fun deep dive! Thank you for linking the online FAO manual; I'm reading through it just for the goof :)
Been watching too much Cody's Lab. I was waiting for Adam to take a bite of the charcoal the entire time.
10:50 So, In India, I have seen cow poop being used as a binding agent with coal dust or charcoal dust to make briquettes. Dry cow dung in itself has been used as a fuel by many civilisations since ancient times (Even ancient Israelites have talked about it in the Bible in Ezekiel) but it produces a hella amount of smoke.
The krinkling sound of burning charcoal is always nice
In the lump charcoal I get for my smoker sometimes I get some very large pieces and I've noticed the larger pieces can make bigger and cooler noises. Like a bigger 'ting' sound.
@festerofest4374 lol..."bbq music"
I love the sound that charcoal makes as it's burning at the end. Will never not love that sound.
This video was really good. Thanks
You failed to mention COKE, which may have been intentional. Like wood, coal is dirty carbon with many impurities. When heated in an oxygen-free (anaerobic) environment, coal will vent these volatile organic compounds while leaving the carbon untouched. This is how coke is made and it's the same process you described for making charcoal. Therefore it is best to compare charcoal to coke as they are both distilled carbon.
8:20 Your actually doing pyrolysis not distillation. The gases are mostly hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide, Both of which are very flammable and can be stored for use later with a more complex charcoaling setup.
Is carbon monoxide flammable? Does that mean ICE engines waste those combustible compounds?
@@clancon It's very flammable and internal combustion engines burn a decent amount of it but due to the short combustion time in the cylinder a lot is lost out the exhaust pipe before it has a chance to fully burn.
@@link12313 this is interesting, thanks. Completely upended my intuition of exhaust as waste, or byproduct.
@ Exhaust is never waste if you know how to use it. Fully burned exhaust can be pumped into a greenhouse to keep it at 1200PPM CO2 for the best growing conditions or dried and stored in tanks for anything that needs an inert CO2 atmosphere.
Primitive Technology: Charcoal
That video shows a great demonstration on making charcoal.
it's nice to know the science behind charcoal and how we use it for food. thank you for that.
I thought adam was about to turn the coal room into a gigantic charcoal maker, using the chute as a tiny opening (as a natural progression).
Then I realized his whole house is sitting on it...
Yes, dumping water on hot coals produces activated charcoal, although this method is inefficient compared to today's factory processes.
The reason I know this is because I make biochar in a home-made retort using deadfall wood from the forest on my land. I learned to make the activated stuff because it absorbs almost anything that comes along - including fertilizer.
The fertilizer I use comes from dumping kitchen scraps into a barrel and letting it rot. Then I dump in the activated charcoal and it soaks it all up, thus giving me a liquid fertilizer that is in solid form. Much easier to shovel it that way.
8:10 the flammable gas is called Wood Gas and it can be collected and used.
@@robertfaucher3750 if I remember correctly, doesn't nighthawkinlight do a video on this?
@AndBenC almost mentioned exactly him in this comment
playing vintage story and a huge element of progressing out of stone tools is making charcoal and eventually transitioning to coal for higher tiers of metal, its super fun seeing how closely it mirrors reality
The entire game is supposed to be realistic right? Well forget about the eldritch elements and lore and you get just a purely realistic voxel survival game(though i dont recommend that since the eldritch elements and lore is absolutely insane in the best way possible), and also, i was surprised seeing another vintage story player, though it probably wasnt entirely unexpected
Another fellow vintage story enjoyer we have here
1:55 So what I’m hearing is Minecraft did teach me something….
Always has been
My aunt has a low oxygen oven she uses to produce charcoal from branches on the forest floor. It smells really nice when you burn it
Primitive Technology has some good videos of him making charcoal
Man! I love your content! You are able to research and then explain stuff in easy digestible ways that I just don't have the time to do myself. Thanks for your efforts!
3:15 am, an exam later and I'm watching Adam talk about charcoal. Life is truly amazing
That sounds like me. Singapore/KL/HK/Perth/Taipei.
Good luck with your exam brother.
This is more important 😉
Pro tip.... grind some charcoal and and sprinkle it over Super Glue when you stick something together.... it hold the surfaces like concrete.... it can even bind together ceramics and is pretty much Unbreakable and also dries out really quickly.... try it.... it may become a lifesaver and you can even bond metal with it....
Baking soda is similar
@someguy-g4r I have tried baking soda it's nothing like charcoal... if you want to t
dry it quickly baking soda is good. but for bonding and strength charcoal powder does not even compare with baking soda.
I think it's great that this is a whole video about something interesting - related to cooking and not about cooking. You obviously have a great intellect that connects the dots between so many different disciplines. I would like to mention that charcoal in a metal barrel is also a fairly simple method that I didn't hear mentioned. Thanks for this vid!
Fantastic video very educational amazing performance every time I look at charcoal blocks I’m never gonna forget that they’re ground down burnt wood stuck back together again with starch and thank you for practically using the thing you were talking about right in front of us so satisfying
Some good asmr at the end
I love it when food meets physics. Thanks for the awesome episode. I think there’s a lot of foodies out there that would never research charcoal and now thanks to you. They’ll discover it and this was an awesome video to keep it interesting
nice weed analogy, very helpful
Cody's lab used the can method at large scale with a metal 55 gallon drum. He had the vent at the bottom so the wood gas jet was adding to the flame heating the vessel.
Cody's Lab did a video on making Activated Charcoal years ago. You are correct that you can use steam to make it. It's a similar enough process to just making the charcoal but you need to constantly introduce high pressure steam. The steam essentially scoops out any impurities/oils and creates divots that contain more surface area in the process. In turn, making the charcoal far more capable of absorbing impurities
Not what the steam does. The high temperature steam reacts directly with the coal, so existing pores get hollowed out more and that enlarges the surface area.
i work in the garden center at a walmart and all types of charcoal often. this is the first time i've known any of this stuff. thanks for the interesting watch
The one time where Minecraft is actually realistic.
Loved your point regarding sunlight. Essentially petroleum is the same, a battery for stored sunlight from long ago.
Great video!! I can recall when I was homeless and faced many things in life until $70,000 biweekly began rolling in my life went from a homeless nobody to a different person with good things to offer!!!!
wow this awesome I'm 47 and have been looking for ways to be successful, please how??
Elizabeth Regina Nelson is a remarkable individual who has brought immense positivity and inspiration into my life.
Wow 😲 have heard a lot of wonderful things about mrs Elizabeth Regina nelsen on the news but didn't believe it until now. l'm definitely trying her out😇
She is really a good investment advisor.
I was privileged to attend some of her seminars. That's how I started my own crypto investment.
Attending her seminars must have been incredibly informative and inspiring, encouraging you to take the leap and start your own crypto investment journey. That's fantastic!
Funny how Adam always attributes old discoveries to accidents while he himself is quite a scientist. The men from the old days were curious and clever too man!
Love your channel btw!
Adam Ragusea is the Hank Green of cooking.
The UA-camr to Newman's Own pipeline at work again.
@@evildude109 please explain what this means. I'm very curious
Adam your videos bring me so much peace, chill and calm and good times and good vibes and you are the best! Keep it up man!
big thumbs up and greetings from Czech Republic :) Love you and Lauren! :)
Love this channel so much. It gives me a similar vibe to Good Eats which was one of my favorite shows back in the 2000s.
if minecraft has taught me anything... its made of tree
So this is the first video of yours I've ever watched, it's 12 mins long and it has taken me nearly an hour to get to the end. Why? Because it was jam packed with knowledge! I had to go on around 5 side quests researching all the complex things you explained perfectly in such few words hahaha. Thank you! Amazing video! Now I gotta look through your other content. See "yall" in 3 years maybe? haha.
Adam, you are perfectly describing a Japanese "kotatsu." Great granny had one, a low table with a blanket. It was kept warm by (hmm) not quite coal, not quite charcoal, but something, in a small hole in the floor.
Pyrolysis is thermal decomposition (chemical reaction). You're converting the cellulose and lignin into hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, water, and carbon. The "smoke" coming out of the tin is woodgas, which is flammable due to the CO and H2 content. Distillation is not a chemical reaction, just a change of phase.
The smoldering sounds at the very end, nice touch.
This is a certified Ragusea classic. Absolute banger of a video.
I remember the Primitive Tech guy did a video years ago where he made charcoal. He stacked long pieces of wood in a cone so it was completely full. Then he covered it all with mud. Once the mud dried he broke a hole open at the bottom (ground level, and then made sure the too was broken off/free of the mud/clay. Next he started a fire at the bottom hole he made. Once it was jetting and he thought it had vented enough, he covered over the top and bottom holes, cutting off the air supply. Once it had cooled he broke it open and had alot of beautiful charcoal
First
This is my favorite video of yours in a while. Love the deep dive science stuff. Hope your success never ends, my dude!
This method of making charcoal may also be one of the first methods we used to refine metal from ore! If you fill the pit with charcoal and pulverized copper ore, you can then plug it with a cap of turf and force air into the pit with a set of bag bellows. After a couple hours, you'll be able to sift the ashes to retrieve the copper (it'll be a lot like panning for gold, as the copper doesn't tend to fully condense at the bottom)
As an experienced wood fire builder, and cooker, you are correct, it was the first charcoal, because there are very few reasons not to make a wood fueled fire that doesn't automatically produce coals, and by association, charcoal. Unless you're running a wood fired forge, or otherwise constantly forcing feeding air into the combustion process to get a complete burn, there's almost always leftover coals and charcoal. Flame is only part of a wood fire, and is only for light, coals are what's for for cooking and heat.
In Brazil we have woodfire stoves for cooking... They are designed in a way that creates an airflow from the entrance to the chimney so the bad smoke goes away but you still get a smokey flavour in your food that makes everything more delicious.
Was just doing research on the best charcoal making method so i could use it for smithing and here adam is with a video on charcoal.
Funny you mentioned running stagnant water through charcoal when thats part of how I help add bacteria to my garden beds. That hollow structure provides lots of little nooks and crannies that are great for bacteria to live in.
Adam (and other interested parties) should read The Domestic Revolution by Ruth Goodman (2020), about how the UK switched from wood burning to coal burning for domestic use, starting all the way back in the 1500s. This change made a huge difference in how people lived, cooked, and cleaned - which back in the day was not an insignificant amount of a person's life (particularly a woman person)
I literally was googling this last night. Perfect timing!
an upside down barrel with holes close to the open end inside a bigger barrel packed with wood between the two is best way to make it, the off gassing helps heat the inner barrel and isn't just wasted.
I can personally vouch for Seed. I can't afford it anymore, but it's super sustainable and the product does work, really helped with my stomach issues when I was taking it.
I learned a lot about making charcoal in the Primitive Technology videos (new one today!). Also learned that Connecticut farmers once made an income cutting down all their trees to run the early industrial revolution smelters on charcoal, before electricity was known about.
I like the way most pot heads really get into a subject and do a deep dive into a subject with lots of details and some lore thrown in along with some wild guesses.
I was taught in school how to make charcoal crayons. Take a tin can and put some twigs in it. Then fill the can with dirt and put it over a fire. You get nice black crayons that can be used to draw or as crude makeup. It's a fun thing to do with kids.
When I was a boy scout we made char-cloth with altoid tins and wash rags. It's good to make fire with flint and steel, it catches the spark and keeps it long enough to build a fire with it.
For the retort, it might be worth adding a copper pipe pointing from the top to the bottom of the retort to raise the temperature inside even higher.
Modern activated charcoal is also made from superheated steam I believe.
If you take low-quality coal (from the ground) and run it through that same retort process you get coking coal, which is super important in the industrial production of steel and other alloys.
Hey Adam, I'd love to see you do a video on the contrast between gender roles with certain kinds of cooking. How traditionally, food prep was seen as a female oriented task, and that carries into today to some extent, with it being far more common for the wife to be the stay at home parent and homemaker if both parents aren't working. But then grilling, smoking, and cooking with campfires, and even professional chef work is mostly seen as a masculine thing.
I ran a modern charcoal generator at a friend's house that he had built to make his own charcoal with. He heated it with a 150,000 BTU propane wok burner (lots of heat spread out over a wide area at the bottom of the steel vessel) and it did not have an oxygen inlet, only an exhaust gasses outlet that he placed inside the propane flame and routed through its own mini-burner. The gasses produced are potentially combustible so you're getting some of the energy back out of the wood to help fuel the conversion to charcoal. You can also distill this stuff off and save the liquid phase, this is how most mass-produced liquid smoke is made in fact. He used wood species that were no good for cooking with (like pine and fir) as the wood fuel for the fire underneath, that he had culled from his property to help reduce wildfire risk, and then he had trees he grew specifically for hardwood firewood some day, a mix of oak cherry and almond, and he'd cut them down periodically and either save the wood as such, or debark it (the bark is best burned in a smoker) and convert it to charcoal for his grill or to help start his smoker with before feeding it the unburned hardwood and extra bark for maximum flavor.
Adam, do not become complacent, you are my favorite favorite channel. Also, watch out what you are advertising, many of those are not really good products.
Great ep as others have observed. AFAIK charcoal briquettes often have a dose of saltpeter in them to light off faster.