so i just learned that people make charcoal by putting wood in some container with little oxygen and build a fire around it. but why not just burn the wood directly, and take the leftovers?
im guessing some of the wood burns away if you aren’t using a container, so it’s less efficient, but if you’re in a forest with limitless wood it doesn’t really seem to be worth the effort when you can easily just create a bigger fire. another reason i can guess is that the charcoal you get from using a container is higher quality. if that is the case, why does it produce higher quality charcoal, and what does it mean for charcoal to be higher quality?
In: Chemistry
It’s the same stuff. The big difference is burning it in a retort style container will let you finish with a known amount of charcoal with very little ash in it.
Also cause fires would usually just burn through the charcoal as it’s making it so you’d get very little after in that method.
But if you light a big fire, wait for it to go mostly to coals then throw it in an airtight container it’ll snuff out and you’ll be left with all the charcoal still. Some people use this method cause you need no new equipment like a retort.
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