Japanese charcoal making & coppicing

[Stere]

A Treasured Creation: Resonance for Charcoal - 15 Minutes | NHK WORLD-JAPAN On Demand

WWW3.NHK.OR.JP

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Hara Masaaki makes white charcoal called Kishu Binchotan in the deep forests of Wakayama Prefecture. He thinks of...

 

15 min video^

 

Impressive  how well the brush axe cuts thoose  oak branches.

 

Quercus phillyraeoides

 

 

 

Binchotan Charcoal: How it's made and why it's Awesome

KNIFEWEAR.COM

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Mike covered most of the basics about the binchotan charcoal in this blog here. This blog goes much deeper into detail, its...

 

 

Crazy attention to detail

 

[Khriss]

Used to put a biscuit tin of carefully split willow sticks in my charcoal kiln, for a student - abt as far as i would go faff wise. She drew well with it  ☺️ K

[Stubby]

5 hours ago, Khriss said:

Used to put a biscuit tin of carefully split willow sticks in my charcoal kiln, for a student - abt as far as i would go faff wise. She drew well with it  ☺️ K

My Gran had a biscuit tin in the pantry .

[gary112]

6 hours ago, Khriss said:

Used to put a biscuit tin of carefully split willow sticks in my charcoal kiln, for a student - abt as far as i would go faff wise. She drew well with it  ☺️ K

 

1 hour ago, Stubby said:

My Gran had a biscuit tin in the pantry .

We just kept biscuits in our biscuits in our biscuit tin😂 

[Woodworks]

Often wonder how they make binchotan. Sadly this gives few clues but a lovely if rather sad video

 

Incredible how hard yet sturdy the charcoal is and sounds like steel when knocked together. 

[Stere]

That first video was beautiful like a studio ghibili film.....

 

 

The second link, links to to a series of 6 videos on youtube that films the whole process from felling the trees, to boxing the final product and, some questions are asked plus answered in the comments.

 

9 days burn mentioned here......seems very long burn time?

 

 

 

 

Could you do the same process in your retort?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Woodworks]

25 minutes ago, Stere said:

That first video was beautiful like a studio ghibili film.....

 

 

The second link, links to to a series of 6 videos on youtube that films the whole process from felling the trees, to boxing the final product and, some questions are asked plus answered in the comments.

 

9 days burn mentioned here......seems very long burn time?

 

 

 

 

Could you do the same process in your retort?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9 Days! Well yes technically I could but the effort and fuel required would need to charge a fortune for the end product. I guess when you do it in a large kiln/retort the labour is less of an issue but even so 9 days! 

 

Will watch the videos when I get a moment. Thanks

[Gav73]

Often wonder how they make binchotan. Sadly this gives few clues but a lovely if rather sad video
 
Incredible how hard yet sturdy the charcoal is and sounds like steel when knocked together. 

I was astounded by the sound it made. I actually thought it was steel at first!

[difflock]

Is part of the secret, the hardness of the Oak they start with?

And, as other have commented I too was astounded at the ceramic/steel like ring from the final product.

I cannot begin to understand how 9 days of elevated temperatures can make the charcoal denser/harder, but apparently it does.

Fsscinating stuff.

[openspaceman]

24 minutes ago, difflock said:

Is part of the secret, the hardness of the Oak they start with?

And, as other have commented I too was astounded at the ceramic/steel like ring from the final product.

I cannot begin to understand how 9 days of elevated temperatures can make the charcoal denser/harder, but apparently it does.

 

I don't know either but can speculate a bit; charcoal made at temperatures lower than 450C is all amorphous (randomly arranged little chains and rings of carbon atoms, above 450 and the chains tend to form in little rings joined together, little graphene like sheets. I suspect that if the charcoal is held at high temperature for a long time then more graphite like substance will be formed. At around 1000C the remaining charcoal is almost pure carbon and is only about 1/6 of the original dry weight (plus in this instance some of the carbon is burned off to get to the high temperature).

 

Now I don't thing you will get much above 1500C in that kiln (diamond turns to graphite at 1200C I think) but when graphite is made from sintered carbon powder and pitch  the temperature has to get above 2500C to turn the whole amorphous mass to graphite. This temperature is higher than a steel furnace and cannot be achieved by burning carbon so I suspect it is done in an inert atmosphere  by passing an electric current through the charge and resistance heating raises the temperature.

 

 

My brother would have been able to give a scientific analysis as the physical chemistry of carbon was his field.