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dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46247
Location: yes

Posted: Sat Jun 26, 21 8:53 am Post subject:

re bbq firewood

a mix is useful in type and size

cooking on fire is not the same as bbq with a bag of charcoal
it gives more scope for variety, but it needs more skill

among the better common timbers are:
ash, stick split and lump
oak, lump or kindling size
birch, all shapes
chestnut, lump
fruit wood, lump, grilling

as to "soft wood" it will give heat as kindling, probably ok for things in pans, not so good for short order grilling or slow roast
that said cold climate "soft" wood can be pretty good in larger sizes, it is a matter of arranging the style of fire for the task

re kindling or fuel dead hanging is ace stuff

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15996

Posted: Sun Jun 27, 21 8:38 am Post subject:
I would agree for cooking instead of charcoal. I prefer cooking over wood, but would always choose hardwood. Softwood is really only good for kindling, although as you say, possible for fast cooking in pans.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46247
Location: yes

Posted: Sun Jun 27, 21 9:21 am Post subject:

good charcoal can be lit with flint and pyrites kit

make dust with the white, free radical rich seams, spark it even with a cool spark, breathe, build

with a fire steel it is easier, spark, blow, add the second chunk , blow

i find it sad that folk round here go to the bother of organizing a bbq and then douse everything in paraffin candle flavour

a neat trick for cooking in a pan is using a log or stump with a hole in the middle for air uptake and a fire in the "bowl" at the top.
heat and pan stand
stone age or metal tech can make that one very easily
useful in a swamp or if the ground is frozen mud that the fire will sink into.

it saves a lot of bending over the stove as well

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46247
Location: yes

Posted: Sun Jun 27, 21 9:25 am Post subject:
maybe an odd fuel choice, my best kettle fuel is dry dock stems with seeds on light, fast and hot in a gillie kettle very nice tinder as well if shredded a bit

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46247
Location: yes

Posted: Sun Jun 27, 21 9:31 am Post subject:
ps for my tiny gasification stove i spent £6 on what is best described as a bit of pull up radio aerial with a mouth friendly end extendable "lipstick" nice nozzle, ideal man power bellows(and i keep my eyebrows) tiny so it barely notices in the small cooker bag kit

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15996

Posted: Mon Jun 28, 21 6:58 am Post subject:

There is an old trick, which I have never managed, with British charcoal, of lighting a visitor card size bit of cardboard and holding it to a chunk. Blow, put down, add another lump or two, and instant barbecue.

For our Kelly kettle at shows we tend to use the shavings from the pole lathe and shave horse. Even when a bit green still they burn well, and on a dry day they can be pretty well seasoned by the time they hit the ground.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46247
Location: yes

Posted: Mon Jun 28, 21 10:50 am Post subject:

bag charcoal usually needs a little tinder and kindling

a couple of minutes making feather sticks covers that

best charcoal in a bag can be started easily with a version of your card trick

by flame or spark get one bit to take light in a crevice with a white powdery surface, gently blow, sandwich another bit with a white surface on top and pinch them together and blow until you have a small hand forge
put them down and add more fuel, blow

the blowing bit is technical and needs advice and practice for a variety of situations

i usually hold the initiator fuel to blow, easier, and it will mention when it is hot enough

best best charcoal is very fresh, covered in white and will take direct with most ignition sources, the stuff i made every night in the tent stove would light with a fire steel, a quick arranging and set the air intake to burn and be cooking breakfast faster than an electric hob

my light camping thing works like this

settle down, light cookfire, use the last fuels to form a clamp, get it well hot with plenty of embers, cover with sand or earth, it will steam and blow smoke for a bit but usually that is not an issue

it is not an efficient conversion or very predictable, it will produce easy light charcoal from many timbers, it will give dry char sticks, it may produce a decent yield especially if there are a few chunky bits of dense timber included

ps for easy light stuff, the classic hardwoods are ok, blackthorn is outstanding and even softwoods will do ok if clamped when between fire and ashes

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15996

Posted: Tue Jun 29, 21 7:36 am Post subject:

The charcoal made in a retort kiln doesn't have any white on it as it is not actually in contact with any fire. Charcoal made in a ring kiln or earth burn will have. I agree about your method of firelighting; if we have a brash fire, we leave it, then rake through in the morning and a combination of charcoal, heat and dry sticks at the edges is usually enough to get it going again in the morning without matches.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46247
Location: yes

Posted: Tue Jun 29, 21 8:48 am Post subject:

the last ember in the heap has a Loki style of humour for travelling fuel

for static rake and it lights from heat etc is ace, for later or travel not on fire now and easy lit later is ideal

the difference between clamp/ring and retort method is interesting

charcloth and other toasted tinder is better made with some air related loss rather than in a retort type of kit( a 40% yield of amazingly burny is better than 95% and where is my blowtorch)

im not familiar with the chemistry, but having some unstable radicals built into the "product" makes sense
it seems plausible that "stopped" flame might give the right reaction conditions

PS a plumbers style blowtorch will light any sort of charcoal(and other fuels)

gregotyn

Joined: 24 Jun 2010
Posts: 2201
Location: Llanfyllin area

Posted: Tue Jun 29, 21 1:30 pm Post subject:

Back again for a short spell! Tried a few times but my home working has to win over the library to keep the fires burning. I am still selling about 3 nets of kindling a day, and I don't ever have a fire on at home and only have heat in food or up to 5 hot water bottles in bed if it is very cold. So what are folks doing with my kindling in this weather? There can't be too many fires being lit at night surely?, and soft wood is not a lot of use on BBQs. My guess is OAPS.

I have done a lot of kindling since I have been off for a while, collecting as much as I can now when it is a, available and b, dry! The company I used to work for are keeping it for me, and also a local store in Welshpool gives it away, but there it is only any worth going in good weather as it is outside and subject to Welsh rain! I have made my objective to chop as much as I can 3 days a week. I also have a friend who has a small wood working business in the local town. I have been a good friend to them and so I an hoping he will take me on in a casual basis and allow me to develop more products of my own, which he can have when I fall over or have had enough! Though I think I would like to "go" in my own wood shed at home!

I now know I have made a big mistake and have allowed a young girl to keep her horses, 2, on my fields for 2 years. Her father is going to do the field work for me-hedges and so on; and he will trim the large trees branches, as most are overhanging the field and I hope to be doing a good log trade. I wanted to have 2 other horses for a week or so as the owner is going to hospital for no2 baby and wants them out of the way of husband, who is not stock minded. However the new girl will not allow me to have the horses to do someone a favour. I hope she never needs a favour from me! Luckily the friend has an alternative become available in the last 2 days so ok but could have been a near thing. Easy to be wise after the event , but wait till next year when there will be no stock, even after the summer grazing!

I am about to clear up the old veg patch. I haven't grown veg for a year or so now and I have a lot of self set trees growing straight up with few branches of diameter-just the thing for show jump poles so I am hoping to see the friend as he has a large lathe and it may do the job for me. I don't know how they turn long poles but my guess is the pole turns and the cutter goes forward along the pole as they do on normal lathes? I need some advise here!!-please. The finished pole should be 5" diameter and 12ft. long. They should have no splits but that is un controllable they say!
"See" you all when I can, and best wishes till then!

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15996

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 21 7:14 am Post subject:

Certainly for green wood working anything round is made out of larger split wood, so the original branch would have to be over twice the required size of the final object. The branch would be split in 4 so get 4 round items out of it. If you leave it 'in the round' it tends to split unless seasoned very slowly and carefully as timber shrinks more around the circumference than radially.

I suspect people are using your kindling to start outdoor fires as 'fire pits' are all the rage at the moment. You have a fire in a pan or hollow in the earth and sit round it; like the old camp fires. Otherwise, good for starting barbecues.

Pity the girl with the grazing won't share, but she may have reasons, such as fear of infection or worry there won't be enough grass to go round.

We are busy with charcoal and improving things to make life easier for us to work. Also have some log loads to get out so people can store them for next winter, but somehow every time we make progress at the moment, something holds us back, so don't manage as much as we would like or need to do.

gregotyn

Joined: 24 Jun 2010
Posts: 2201
Location: Llanfyllin area

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 21 1:05 pm Post subject:

The library has now reopened. This site doesn't like me and the trouble it was to get in-I only got in due to the knowledge of the librarian. We have had our time reduced to 1hour from the original 2 hours. I would like to get a small pooter, but what happens when it freezes and i am at home?

I haven't got much to report, but have got horses grazing at home and the girl doesn't seem to realise that they must go at the end of September, otherwise she gets a backdoor tenancy, which means she gets my grazing for ever and a day. I have given her the summer grazing to keep the grass down after haymaking but she dived in first, not to worry as she only has the grazing till September and not a day after.

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 8952
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 21 6:32 pm Post subject:
Stand firm on that Gregotyn. Possibly give her written notice? Thats what I did to get sheep off my ground . Then no argument he said she said.....

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15996

Posted: Wed Jul 14, 21 7:21 am Post subject:
I would agree with that Gregotyn. She may be aware of the potential situation too, so put it all in writing, then if she tries to keep her horses there illegally, you can have her and them put out. Now down to the heel on the second sock, so you should have them by winter.

gregotyn

Joined: 24 Jun 2010
Posts: 2201
Location: Llanfyllin area

Posted: Thu Jul 15, 21 2:20 pm Post subject:

Well it is like this -the library reopened and then closed again. But hopefully this time it will keep going for a bit longer that one visit. Nothing exciting happened recently, but I have got it into the little girl with the grazing agreement, that, when I say she has to go, she goes! and she has a grazing agreement which will end on the last day of September, signed and sealed today-fingers crossed for me please folks! She didn't understand the meaning of the heading "Summer grazing", but she does now-April 1st to September30th. I explained that if I allowed her to exceed her date then she could claim a tenancy, which is out of the question. The alternative is to put the horses back where they came from across the road which is where they I will put them if she doesn't go when I tell her go.

Not much else happened. But I do have a reasonable quantity of kindling cut and I will be concentrating on that from now on for a few weeks to get the stock to be winter ready-a minimum of 500 nets by September will mean I can have breakfast in bed in winter and in time for start at 8am instead of starting chopping at 7am and boycotting breakfast! That hour makes a big difference-you chop like mad to keep warm in winter! I don't remember if I told you about my neighbour who has made a stick chopper for me using a design he found on the internet-I now chop much quicker than before and my right arm doesn't ache anything like it did when I chopped by hand, even if hand chopping is faster.

Thankyou for the second sock bulletin, MR, I look forward to their inauguration! You must tell me how much money they are.

I will be back as soon as they say I can come, been good to read some of your posts.

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