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
If you just burn wood, you’re mostly making hot air and ash.
Charcoal is what’s left over after incomplete combustion.
So if you want to deliberately make a lot of charcoal, you have to get hot enough to burn without actually burning most of it (i.e. without oxygen)
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