The presents my family gave at Christmas left our friends scratching their heads.
Coal, the stuff bad kids find in their stocking Christmas morning.
More accurately, charcoal—lump charcoal made in my backyard from Hurricane Gustav debris.
The storm left us with an embarrassment of woody riches. While hackberries were useless and our fallen ancient elm too sinuous and twisted for splitting, the red and water oaks were perfect firewood. The problem was the overabundance.
I’m an avid outdoor cook, and I grill outside every chance I get—rain or shine, steam or frost.
Gazing at all the tidy stacks of split oak a few weeks after the storm, I realized most of it would rot in our humid climate before I could burn it in the grill. I loathed the idea of watching it decompose in our now-huge brush pile.
But what if I could convert the bulky wood down to charcoal? I remembered poking around the Internet a few years ago researching homemade charcoal, but my inquiries went nowhere. Gustav sent me Googling with a new sense of purpose.
I learned that not only can you make homemade lump charcoal, it’s much purer than commercially made charcoal briquettes since lump charcoal is pure wood. Commercial briquettes are made from charcoal dust mixed with binders and chemicals.
Making charcoal is an ancient skill, and it remains important today in some under-developed countries. The idea is simple: Burn wood and limit the oxygen. The intense heat cooks off the water, tar and gasses, leaving just carbon—charcoal.
Technology, I discovered, gives backyard colliers a distinct advantage over low-tech predecessors in the 55-gallon steel drum. The batches may be small, but the burns are easily controlled, and regulating the oxygen supply is the key. Too much air and the wood burns up, not enough and you only char the wood’s surface.
I invested about $40 in a reconditioned drum with a removable lid. Following Internet instructions, I cut five holes in the bottom of the drum. A cold chisel can cut steel—although it’s a loud, violent process involving a small sledgehammer and plenty of pounding—but it works.
I spent another handful of dollars on four heat-treated firebricks. I set the now-ventilated drum atop the bricks, loaded the drum with chunks of wood and lit it from below. Once the fire was strong, I piled dirt at the drum’s base to cut off airflow to all but a four-inch gap. Then the lid went on the top, propped slightly open with a piece of steel reinforcing bar.
It smoldered that way for three to four hours. The next step required a bit of art and experience.
With the oxygen limited, the kiln spewed out white smoke. That’s the water, tars and other compounds in the wood cooking off. Once those compounds are all burned away, the smoke thins out to a wispy blue. The wood is now charcoal, and the charcoal begins to burn.
At this point you smother the fire by sealing the lid and piling more dirt around the base to cut off the air altogether. It takes about 18 hours to cool.
My first few batches, I smothered the burn too soon and ended up with a third to a quarter of un-burned wood.
But I quickly mastered the process, and now I consistently turn out 20 pounds of quality charcoal from each fully loaded drum.
The final product is a joy. It starts easily, burns hot and performs great for beef, chicken, veggies and seafood. I’m producing more than I can use, so I’m stockpiling bags and sharing with family and friends.
With similar quality lump charcoal selling for less than a $1 a pound, I may be a bit crazy to invest the time and sweat to make my own. (My daughters agree; my wife is tolerant.) Why chainsaw logs into six-inch thick disks, stack those rounds, split them, and go through the rigmarole of loading, burning and sorting?
Because I’m producing something from nothing. You can’t give firewood away in Baton Rouge these days, and we don’t have a fireplace. And in one small way I’m creating something positive from the negative Gustav left behind.
Besides—the whole ritual is rather satisfying. But I thank God (and the city-parish) that the last of the roadside storm debris has been collected. Now I can drive without coveting potential charcoal at every turn.
A lump in my throat
Sometimes a tiny gesture can mean so much.
A little background: I posted an ad on Craigslist offering to trade some of my homemade charcoal. Two days before Christmas, a woman named Vonda e-mailed me, asking if I would sell her some charcoal. She wanted it for her son. For Christmas.
The boy—a good boy—had actually asked for coal for Christmas, but they couldn’t find any, she said in her e-mail.
I replied offering to give them the charcoal. On Christmas Eve morning, Vonda’s husband came by and picked up a small bag. I thought little more of it until another e-mail arrived. It touched me deeply, mostly for how her son looked beyond himself to the needs of others and how such a tiny gesture meant so much.
“We want to tell you thank you once again for being so kind and sweet to us,” Vonda wrote. “I am handicapped, and my boys help me a lot while my husband works. They are two of the best boys any parent could ask for.
“The tape I have of my son calling Santa is so beautiful. ‘Santa, please give my toys to all the poorer kids in the world. They need it more than I do. Thank you Santa. Oh wait! WAIT! I do want something! I want a lump of coal! I’ve never seen one, and I really want one! I haven’t been bad … really! I just want one! So if you could stop by and just leave me a lump of coal … that is all I want!’
“Thank you sir for doing this for us. We drove all the way home with huge smiles and much happiness. It gives us great joy. It would seem that it would be a thing that wouldn’t be important to a child, but he kept saying he hoped Santa left him his coal. We went and got a beautiful box and the prettiest bows to cover it in.
“They really are great kids, and this meant so much to us to complete our little ones’ Christmas! I’m more than sure the coal will be the highlight of his Christmas morning. 🙂 You’ve made our Christmas complete.
“Thank you so very much and have a very merry, wonderful Christmas!!!! You certainly made a little boy’s Christmas perfect.”
I wrote back to tell her that her note was one of the best Christmas presents I had received. Her gratitude and her son’s concern for others continue to touch me.—C.F.
