I live close to Amish lumber mills.
I use the cut offs and scraps.
They used to give it away , but now charge so much per load , last load in a 4x6x2 trailer was $20.00.
Just have to ask, if they're in a good mood it could be cheaper .
You can make a lot of charcoal out of that.
Usually it's used for home forges to do metal work shaping.
Blacksmithing .

When in AZ collect mesquite....

You know what the difference is between a Mennonite and a canoe....a canoe tips

I've made a pile of it over the years, the barrel inside a barrel method and it turned out great. Much better stuff than bought once you learned when it was done.

My barrels burnt thru so I haven't made any for a couple years, but this post gave me the push I needed to fix a couple barrels up and make some mkre!

Just up the road from my Deer Cabin is a commercial Kiln, and all they buy and stuff in there is green wood. The water vapor condenses and runs out into a small pool that the locals dump there traps into to blacken them. LOL

Does elm make a good charcoal?

I would think it would make very good charcoal.
Hard woods all make good charcoal.

Surely that's a misprint on the cost of a 12lb bag.

You are probably correct. I wasn't shopping; just grabbed the first example on Amazon to plug into a bogus equation.

My only point is that making your own is dirt cheap and brain dead simple.

I was at some friends of mines Shire today. My friend Dennis welded up two charcoal cookers. He fabricates all sorts of cool items and structures.

In the first picture, there is piece of angle iron along the edges of the hole. The angle iron prevents oxygen from entering well, while the wood is burning.



In this picture the fire goes below the box. The box is sealed except for one pipe that goes down and one that goes up. Both pipes allow the gasses to escape and spout fire. Dennis is getting 60% of the weight of the ash wood he uses in charcoal.



He pulverizes some of the charcoal for use as biochar, with a hammer mill. He uses large chunks of charcoal in a huge pizza oven, he built and in a hog roaster, he built too. He had several dozen 50 pound onion sacks of chunk charcoal and a great many buckets of pulverized charcoal.

Keith

He could use it in a wood gasification system to run a motor. Also important ingredient in making black powder.

Yes, on both. They are apocalypse ready.

Keith

Both are on my list of skills to master. Just not enough time in the week.

Get it at the dollar store in September for 2 bucks 15lb bag clearance. Total time involved ? 9 minutes each way . They are so close together don’t matter where you live one is 9 minutes away

Her no fun!! lol.