Tennessee Gun

Tag: charcoal

  • Instafire Fire and Charcoal Starter

    Instafire Fire and Charcoal Starter

    InstaFire Fire Starters

    A few weeks ago I was approached by the guys at Instafire to try out their product. I saw it on Sharktank and was already familiar with it so of course I said okay. I have messed with various fire starters before so I was not really expecting much, but after using it, I think its one of the best firestarting products I have used.

    It burns a lot like vasoline soaked cotton balls for those woodsman who have tried that common tool, but it is infinitely less messy and burns a lot hotter.

    Using Instafire is simple, if its the charcoal starter (as seen in the video above) just light two sides of the bag and place under the grate so air can flow, then stack charcoal on the grate so the flames can ignite it.

    My camera did not do so well in the heat, so it is a little foggy in the video, but you can see in it that a single starter pack burned long after the coals started to turn white, which is an indication that this stuff is as fire and forget as a burning tool can be.  You don’t have to mess with lighting and relighting and pouring lighter fluid and relighting over and over again.

    Now for the fire starter bag, I didn’t video this because its just too easy – pour the contents on a non-porous surface (like a rock) light it and put your wood over it.  I am not one to follow directions, so I poured mine on a log and then pout more wood over it and that works as well.

    This product is simple and contains no hazardous chemicals – its basically wood pulp, a special blend of paraffin wax, and perlite.  When its done, it is a great fertilizer for your garden.

    Instafire is such a great product, in 2011 it won the innovative product of the year award as well as being funded on Sharktank.

    It comes in small individual bags you can keep in your hunting bag or emergency kit, as well as large buckets you can keep at the cabin or near the fireplace.  I love it and have decided to become an affiliate – which, as you know, I review a lot of stuff, but I don’t become an affiliate very often.

  • How to Convert Wood into Charcoal and Electricity

    How to Convert Wood into Charcoal and Electricity

    Book Review: How to Convert Wood into Charcoal and Electricity
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    How to Convert Wood into Charcoal and Electricity is a step by step (with detailed illustrations) guide to building a masonry furnace to convert wood into charcoal.

    Just his alone is worth the price of the book, however, Mr. Buxton then shows how to extract, filter, and condense the woodgas byproduct and use it to run an internal combustion engine to produce electricity.

    This is a very well written and easy to understand manual. Do not let the small size fool you, this is great material and well worth the read.

    This book is something that I have read and reread dozens of times.  I plan on making a decent sized set up to make charcoal in the future.  Charcoal is needed for my foundry so I can melt aluminum, and it will also be needed when I finally build my blacksmith shop area at the land.

    Besides that, I can have some bragging rights (not that most people would brag on this), but I would love to be able to say I am eatting BBQ from a pig I raised and butchered, on a grill I built, using charcoal I made.

    This is one particular project that is very high on my list of projects.

  • How to Make a Charcoal Starter From a Can

    How to Make a Charcoal Starter From a Can

     

    52 Unique Techniques for Stocking Food for Prepper
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    I used to just dump copious amounts of lighter fluid on my charcoal and keep spraying it on until everything caught fire.  Unfortunately, that was both dangerous and wasteful.

    Since it is getting into grilling season I was looking at buying a chimney charcoal starter.  However, a charcoal starter is just a metal cylinder with a charcoal grate mounted inside. I figured I could easily make one out of a #10 can.

    All I did was get out my can opener to open the bottom of the can, and then used a church key bottle opener to punch out a few air holes around the bottom of the can.

    To use, I simply wadded up some paper and placed unlit charcoal into the top of the cylinder. When the newspaper is lit, it burns and lights the charcoal above. The “chimney effect” causes the charcoal to light from the bottom all the way up to the top.

    If you want the paper to burn longer you can coat it in vegetable oil before you light it.
    I did this on a whim, and was surprised how well it worked. I may rivet a handle on it in the future, but probably not, as a pair of vice grips works well enough.