Pine Cone Petal Charcoal--Opinions on what to use my limited supply on.

[AirCowPeacock]

I have recently obtained some pinecones--and it was quite and ordeal. I ended up having a very limited supply, looking at them right now I think I'll end up with less than 200 grams of charcoal. I'm only going to make one or two batches of charcoal stars. How does pine cone petal charcoal change the composition? Density, burnrate, firedust? As compaired to skylighter pine. What stars do you think I should spend it on? I'll be using it mainly in firedust to green color changing stars for 3" ball shells. Normally I would make TT, because it makes my flowers larger, and as such more impressive. However, I find C6 and Firefly absolutely beautiful. It seems like a waste to use this charcoal in Firefly.

[AirCowPeacock]

Speaking of which, I should cook the pinecones HOT right? And, as far as charcoal for black powder goes: does the wood loss its effacacy during winter dormancy?

[ryanlg95]

Pinecone charcoal is EXCELLENT for Tigertail stars (44:44:6:6 Kno3:Charcoal:Sulfur:Dextrin). Pinecone charcoal makes lots of firedust, so together they make a very 'fluffy' star. I have rolled this into small 5mm stars for a 2" shell and they worked flawlessly.

-Ryan

[AirCowPeacock]

Have you tried it with C6 and/or C8 too? Sweet, so I could get more stars out of the same weight of my charcoal too?