Grill Maestro

I always wondered how those charcoal briquettes are made and it wasn’t until I watched an episode of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe (episode was titled Micro-Algae Man and originally aired on Nov. 1st, 2005) did I realize what was involved in making charcoal. If you’ve ever been to a campfire, then you’ve probably realized that the charred remains of big pieces of wood look awfully similar to charcoal - that’s because they are. Charcoal is basically burned wood, carbonizing it, and then packaged into briquettes or simply as loose bits.

The process is pretty straightforward as well, you pile the wood on their ends so that they form a sort of cone, and you cover the whole thing with turf or moistened clay. You then just fire it up at the bottom and slowly cook the wood in your makeshift cone and eventually the wood burns. Honestly, I don’t think you should be doing this at home though you can buy barrels and kits that will help you make your own charcoal, if you’re so inclined. Personally, I’ll just buy a bag of Kingsford from the store and call it a nice clean day.

If you get the opportunity, check out the Dirty Jobs episode… making charcoal is a lot harder than you’d think (and significantly more labor intensive than I had envisioned).

Source: Wikipedia