Hey folks. It is Paul here once again with another video how to for you. This one is
a bit more labor intensive than a lot of the other things that I've posted or really am
going to post. This is a how to about how to make charcoal
at home. It is possible. There are people out there who people that charcoal is dug
up out of the ground and it's a natural resource, but no, it is a manufactured product and you
can make it. It's actually pretty simple. It's one of the oldest and most continuously
manufactured products in the world and we're going to go to it. We're going to teach you
a couple different ways to do it. The best way is what many people refer as
using a charcoal retort. The retort that I suggest, unless you're going to make something
hyper specialized, which some people do, some people weld their own canisters, is a paint
can. It's pretty simple actually. If you have an
old paint can lying around, you need to clean the hell out of it. Make sure there is absolutely
nothing left inside and just make that it is completely burnt off, completely clean,
completely devoid of all potential foreign matter or chemicals.
I know some people after they've washed it out internally with a very strong soap and
then washed it with completely clean water; they'll throw it on a fire preemptively to
try and burn off anything else that might exist.
I don't like messing with chemicals like that. I don't like running any risks or taking any
chances with my health, except smoking. I like to go to Home Depot; I like to pick up
an entirely unused paint can, which is something that you can buy. It's just sitting on the
shelf, no label, no nothing; just an empty clean paint can.
Everyone has different numbers that work for them, but you take a nail and you tap around
three to five small holes in the top and really that's your retort. That's your little charcoal
kiln. It's really that simple. That's all you need and then you just fill it with wood.
Wood and choosing the right wood. That is it's own little subject. You really need to
do a lot of work on. Softwoods are not good. Anything like pine,
anything out of the evergreen or anything that's really resonant like a lot of the exotic
hardwoods and things like that you do not want anywhere near your charcoal. They're
not good for you, they won't burn right, they're not going to make good charcoal, but it also
could be potentially hazardous to your health. I have shown you making bowls and mouthpieces
before and the same standards that you need for that kind of work is what you need for
your charcoal. Absolutely 100% natural clean hardwood. Things like cherry, olivewood, lemon,
fruitwoods; things like that are great. They're food safe, they're perfectly fine and safe
and they make wonderful charcoal. You can even use things like mesquite and
hickory, which are woods that have been used for culinary purposes because of the flavor
that they give off while burning. If you're interested in it, if you smoke things
like black moassel, that could actually be a really interesting addition to the session,
but in general, you want something that's clean and fairly flavor neutral, which is
why in the middle east, the most common wood you're going to find is fruitwood.
Usually you end up finding either olive or lemonwood because they are both plentiful
as well as have great qualities for making charcoal.
Now that we've got that figured out, the process itself is fairly simple. All you do is you
take the pieces of wood and you chop them down into blocks about twice the size of the
pieces of charcoal that you want at the end. The wood is going to lose a lot of mass. It
is going to expel a lot of water and other materials and it's going to become very brittle
and it's going to actually shrink in this process.
Remember, you can break the charcoal up later and you're going to have to experiment a little
bit with the best sizes for what you want, but I like to chop up either square blocks
if you can just cut in on a bandsaw or I actually have taken some pieces to my lathe, which
I'll show you right here, and I made little discs that are perfectly fit to the size of
my bowls. They're absolutely great but they can be a
little bit difficult to pack into a round retort. The reason that packing matters so
much, you want to make sure that they're little air space as possible inside of the return.
Charcoal is made by heating wood under anaerobic conditions, as little oxygen as you can possibly
have in the process. That is absolutely the best. You want almost no oxygen whatsoever.
You should be packing the paint can straight to the top and as tight as you possible can
with pieces of wood. That is going to make the process a lot of more efficient, it's
going to give you a better product and it's going to lessen the chances for a failed burn.
You want to use relatively dry wood because the drier it is, the faster it's going to
dry out in the fire and the faster it's actually going to start to carbonize. If you're using
fresh wood, I've seen people who it'll take them eight hours to make charcoal.
If you're using dry wood, it should really only take maybe two hours maximum if you're
using a paint can size retort, but all you do from this point is seal it up, actually
use a rubber mallet to close up the paint can so that it's completely sealed and put
it in the middle of a fire. That's it. Then you just wait.
What you're going to see happen is the paint is going to start expelling steam, what looks
like white smoke, but it's really liquid and water coming out of the wood and jetting out
of the little holes that you've punched in the top.
Eventually, that's going to dry out and become clear. You'll probably end up seeing it actually
start to ignite as the very volatile compounds and chemicals that are coming out of the wood
start to burn. That's what you want to happen. You want all
of that gas to be expelled and you want the burn to stay on the outside of the can.
Inside, everything is getting much dryer and starting to carbonize and turning into your
charcoal. One of the most important things that I can
stress is patience. It is going to take a while and you really don't want to rush this
process. If you try and burn too quickly, too hot and try and pull it out early or quench
the can, you're going to end up with a disaster. You're going to end up with either the best
case scenario is unfinished charcoal that doesn't burn right and isn't going to stay
lit. The worst-case scenario is you could end up with a very dangerous situation.
What you're creating when you have a sealed up retort is essentially a pressure pot. There's
a lot of heat and pressure inside of that. You do not want to open it until it is entirely
cool and has been allowed to cool on its own. That could cause the charcoal that you've
created, if it's carbonized properly, it could combust spontaneously because it's very hot
and it's well behind its own flash point once it comes out of the fire.
A flash point for those who don't know is when a material gets so hot that it spontaneously
combusts. Almost everything has a flash point but that charcoal is already there.
It's already ready to burst into flames the second that you take it out of the fire, so
leave it alone. Once you actually do take it out of the fire,
one of the best things to do is take a wet paper towel, place it over the holes so that
oxygen can't get sucked back in because the charcoal is still converting.
It's still changing its physical state or physical properties and you want to try and
keep as much oxygen out as you can, but you don't want to throw something like a dry paper
towel on there because it will burn and that's not a good thing.
When you know that its ready to come out of the fire is when either the jets of flame
start to peter off or when you start to see gray smoke coming out of the holes. That means
that it's starting to actually burn rather than just carbonize.
From this point, if you leave it alone, you don't take the wet paper towel off and you
let it cool entirely on its own; you should be able to open it up and you'll have charcoal.
It'll be beautiful black carbonized wood that you can then break down into the chunks you
need and use to smoke hookah. I actually have a small-unlit piece here that
I'm not actually using that I made earlier. You can hear it's entirely carbonized.
The process is not the safest thing in the world that you can do, but that's because
it involved fire. Please when performing this action, understand the risks, understand there
is obviously a risk of fire and understand that there is a risk of bodily harm.
It's not super high and if you follow the steps carefully and you don't try and rush
it, it's pretty safe, but you need to actually have awareness of the risk.
You need to respect the fire, you need to respect the fact that you're working with
a volatile situation in dangerous conditions, and please make sure to do this outside of
your home, far away from anything that can light on fire and far away from anything that
could combust. It's worth the extra time to make sure that
everything is safe. Please have either a fire extinguisher on hand or if you know the old
camping style of fire extinguisher, sand and water. Have a bucket of sand and a bucket
of water to put fire out at a moments notice. Please stay vigilant. I would not leave this
alone. You're going to want to keep an eye on it because an unattended fire is just asking
for disaster. The other way to do this a little less efficient,
but for many people, it's a little bit easier and it's a great way to get your feet wet.
What you want to do is take the pieces of wood and wrap them in a few layers of aluminum
foil or tin foil. You're going to have to do this to each individual piece so it's a
little bit more wasteful, but what you're doing is creating essentially an individual
retort for every single piece. This won't carbonize as efficiently but if
you take those foil packets, poke a few holes in them to allow some of the pressure out
and place them in the fire pretty careful because you don't want to tear the tin foil.
You should end up with a fairly light and well-carbonized piece of charcoal. If you
have a fire pit, you can do this in there anytime you light up a fire with just some
basic firewood and it's a great way to try it out.
This isn't something that you want to allow to burn, take out of the fire and then try
and cool it down similar to the actual paint can retort. What you want to do is just let
it all go to embers and let it cool naturally. Let the fire die, let everything cool down
before you touch any of it, otherwise you're going to be introducing oxygen and you're
going to be tearing the tin foil and you're going to wind up with a ruined product.
That's about it. When it comes down to it, that is how you make charcoal. It is not the
simplest process in the world, but it's probably a lot simpler than you realized.
This is Paul for Hookah.org trying to help out a little bit. If you find yourself in
a dire situation in the woods, this is an interesting way to keep yourself smoking.
Once again, please be careful, be safe and be a little innovative. Try some things out.
It's worth the feeling of being able to look at your hookah and say 'yeah, I made that.'
Thanks once again for joining us. Please go down below, like and subscribe. Give us that
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going up all time as well as some great reviews. You'll be able to find an article that I wrote
that gives you great details and hopefully even a little bit more insight on exactly
how to make your own charcoal at home. Once again, thank you very much and happy
smoking.