Processing Charcoal

[JFeve81]

You might need a vent of sorts if trying the vacuum thing. It might not suck very well once a vacuum is created inside the jar. That's if it's a tight fitting hose. If there's a bit of air gap you might be ok but then you might loose some airfloat through said gap.

[Anarchy08]

Cant say we use garbage disposals down here in Australia, But we sure do use garden mulchers.

240v garden mulcher ran through 80L of willow charcoal in about 10 mins or so down to 1cm/ airfloat charcoal. just tape a bin bag over the outlet and wear your coal miners outfit and your good to go.

Iv tried the hand crank meat grinder, electric blenders once you go mulcher you never go back.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/garden-mulcher-/121114891676?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item1c3302959c&_uhb=1

similar to this

[marks265]

I bought a Waste King myself. I still need to finish the build to see how well it works. I still want to make a little more charcoal before I fire it up. Once I make a mess I want to be done with it for a while. A thought I have for my build is to have two catch containers. The first would gather all the material straight from the Waste King. Then I wanted to try to tandem off the first container with a second second just to catch the air float charcoal. The idea is to have the second container only catch air float so it is presorted. I think I know how I want to go about it, or at least a couple of different ideas, I just haven't gone there yet.

 

Mark

[mikeee]

Mark,

 

You will need a certain amount of free airflow going thru the disposer for the charcoal to exit the drain fitting.

If you contain the system too much the charcoal tends to plug up in the drain fitting.

Vibration or tapping on the drain pipe fitting will help keep the charcoal flowing.

If you try run too much charcoal at one time it can also plug up.

The internal parts tend to get coated with the charcoal and will plug over time.

You will then need to take the drain fitting off of the disposer and use a brush to clean the internals.

You might be able to use compressed air to clean it out but it will go everywhere, wear a dust mask. :-)

This is a dirty job no matter how you set it up.

You can process several batches of charcoal with no problems, but sooner or later you will need to clean it out.

It's the nature of the charcoal, as it seems to stick to any surface no matter what you do.

[Arthur]

From limited experience over several years the softest charcoal makes the best powder, so if you have to mill the charcoal then you may have quality issues with the finished powder. Hard charcoal will never make good powder. Good powder comes from charcoal that's so friable that ir's hard to hold without breaking it,

[marks265]

From limited experience over several years the softest charcoal makes the best powder, so if you have to mill the charcoal then you may have quality issues with the finished powder. Hard charcoal will never make good powder. Good powder comes from charcoal that's so friable that ir's hard to hold without breaking it,

 

I have always heard softer wood usually has the ability to make a black powder that is more reactive. Could you please explain to me how you make your charcoal so it comes out of the drum as nice and soft air float charcoal? I have always been wanting to have the charcoal reliably turn to dust just from touching it. It would be so nice to not screen or mill it! I would be very pleased to not have to mill my charcoal. Please share your secrets.

 

Mark