My homemade black powder

[Trapper-Jack]

Last month I was gifted a box of sassafras wood from one of the members here to try out. It made into good powder and I sent him back a report with photos of my process and my results. He replied back encouraged me to post the information on the forum. Now, I would like to say that this is my method and certainly not the only way to make good powder, but there may be a nugget or two that can help others on this journey. Also, for me it is not the end all be all as my mind keeps going down rabbit holes thinking "what if" and I need to do another experiment to see if I can do it better. I would like to thank all the ones who have contributed to this thread as the information here is the real deal. This is pretty picture heavy so it may take a few posts.
4/13/2024
It was a nice day today so cooked off some of the sassafras wood you sent. There looks like it took about half of the box for a gallon paint can. I kept the outside temperature at about 450 degrees. I didn't get a time that it took to cook it off but I'm guessing about 40-45 minutes.




It cooked down to a nice uniform charcoal. There was a hint of brown on some of the larger pieces. It all ground down to a fine powder with an old hand meat grinder.

[Trapper-Jack]

4/14/2024
I put a 1/2 pound in my Harbor Freight tumbler. I'm using greenhouse grade 99.9% potassium nitrate, 90% sulfur from the hardware store. The weights going into the tumbler are 170 g potassium nitrate, 35 g charcoal and 25 g sulfur. I bumped the weight of the sulfur to 25 from 22.7 to account for the 90% purity. My tumbling media is some shell casings that I don't have a pistol for that I filled with lead. I believe they were 30 Luger as they have a little shoulder on them. 9 mm with a good crimp should work good I'm thinking. I may try them some day as they are easy to come by.


4/15/2024
Took the green meal out of the tumbler this morning and pressed it into pucks. It has run for about 22 hours. For a pressing die I use a 2" brass nipple. It's smooth on the inside for easier removal of the pressed powder puck. The base plate is a 1/4" steel and the top plate is the same that I turned down round with a file and a drill press to slip fit inside the nipple. At first I used a piece of 1 1/2" pipe to press the top plate but the constant use began to bulge the pipe to where it didn't press level. Since then I've begun using a coupler. So far it's heavy enough that it isn't deforming. The green meal weighed 230.7 grams. I added 4.5% water to press it, about 10.3 cc measured out of a syringe. I loaded the die about 3/4 full and pressed it until it felt solid on the 20 ton jack handle and let it sit for one minute, After the minute, I pumped the jack until it felt solid again (about 3-4 pumps) and let it sit another minute. After that I screwed my brass nipple/die into a coupler and tapped out the puck.




The first batch of powder yielded 6 pucks that ranged from 35 to 40 grams each. The wet density calculated to 1.87 to the last one being 1.89. I haven't figured out why the last puck seems to always be a little higher but it's that way with my willow powder too. The standard deviation between the pucks calculates to 0 .00794, which I'm quite happy with. Usually I'm running about 0.01 to 0.02. I'm thinking that I got a good mix on the water and consistent pressure on the pressing.

[Trapper-Jack]

4/16/2024
I took a second 1/2 pound batch out of the tumbler. Comparing the wet density of the pucks from both batches, they are almost identical. I'm very happy with the standard deviation of the density. The pucks are .0078 for batch number one and .0089 for batch number two. All the pucks were placed in my home built drying box. Made out of an old kitchen drawer with a door mounted onto it and a light bulb for the heat source. I drilled holes in the top and bottom for air flow.


I'll monitor the weights of the pucks for a few days until they quit losing weight, where I assume that they have lost as much of the water weight as they are going to.
4/21/2024
Pucks have been pretty well stabilized. They have lost 3.5% of the original mass as moisture. Where I added 4 1/2% moisture to press the pucks, I'm thinking that the remaining 1% was lost to evaporation while mixing and being pressed out as I get a small amount of free moisture on the bottom plate. Also to note is that the pucks have gone through a little "spring back" while drying. They were about 0.003 inches thicker than when first measured. It does make a little difference when calculating the puck density but not much. I broke up the pucks with a wooden hammer handle into a size that would go through my grain grinder, backing off the plates one full turn and then screening and tightening 1/4 turn and regrinding and so on until back to the original setting. This yielded about 61 - 62% of usable 2F powder. The remainder screened into minus #30 that would have gone 3F, 4F and dust. I don't use much of those so this will be re-processed. I compared the finished powder against Goex 2F that I had bought just prior to the plant shutting down. Setting my powder measure at 100 grains volume, the Goex weighed 120 grains. The Sassafras powder weighed just over 113 grains for the finished Sassafras powder coming in at about 94.4% of mass per volume of the Goex.

[Trapper-Jack]

4/21/2024
Pucks have been pretty well stabilized. They have lost 3.5% of the original mass as moisture. Where I added 4 1/2% moisture to press the pucks, I'm thinking that the remaining 1% was lost to evaporation while mixing and being pressed out as I get a small amount of free moisture on the bottom plate. Also to note is that the pucks have gone through a little "spring back" while drying. They were about 0.003 inches thicker than when first measured. It does make a little difference when calculating the puck density but not much. I broke up the pucks with a wooden hammer handle into a size that would go through my grain grinder, backing off the plates one full turn and then screening and tightening 1/4 turn and regrinding and so on until back to the original setting. This yielded about 61 - 62% of usable 2F powder. The remainder screened into minus #30 that would have gone 3F, 4F and dust. I don't use much of those so this will be re-processed. I compared the finished powder against Goex 2F that I had bought just prior to the plant shutting down. Setting my powder measure at 100 grains volume, the Goex weighed 120 grains. The Sassafras powder weighed just over 113 grains for the finished Sassafras powder coming in at about 94.4% of mass per volume of the Goex.
4/30/2024
I finished up shooting some strings of 10 over the chronograph today. I was shooting 60 grains by volume out of my .50 caliber GPR flintlock with a round ball and spit patch. There were a couple of surprises that I'm going to have to think on and compare it back to my willow. I shot the sassafras 2F against the 3F. The screen sizes used are #16 -#30 for the 2F and #30 to #60 for the 3F. I've been using powder from the #60-#80 screens as my priming powder for the flintlocks.
60 grains Volume
Goex 2F Willow 2F Sassafras 2F Sassafras 3F
1 1383 1328 1267 1384
2 1326 1285 1266 1376
3 1309 1306 1260 1428
4 1323 1323 1246 1344
5 1352 1285 1265 1342
6 1345 1281 1267 1406
7 1343 1268 1306 1397
8 1383 1324 1253 1353
9 1374 1328 1315 1372
10 1364 1320 1304 1382
500 Grain Volume 604.6 552.8 569 530.2
% Weight to Goex 100% 91% 94% 88%
Average Velocity 1350.2 1305 1275 1378
ES 74 60 69 86
SD 26 23 24 35
Velocity per Goex 100% 97% 94% 102%
Measure Setting 60 60 60 60
Powder Weight 60 56.3 56.5 53.9
Weight FPS/grain 22.5 23.2 22.6 25.6
Volume FPS / grain 22.5 21.7 21.2 23.0
Screens: 2F = #16 - #30 3F= #30 - #60

There was an average of about 100 fps faster with the 3F over the 2F. It did show a little more erratic with a standard deviation of 36 against 24 for the 2F. I found it very interesting that even though the actual weight of the 3F was 95.4% of the 2F, the velocity was 108.1% faster than the 2F. The FPS/grain was 22.6 for the 2F against 25.6 for the 3f. This indicates that the smaller grain size is obviously more efficient than the larger grain size. May be something to consider when loading limited capacities such as revolvers and cartridges. I'm now going to have to screen out some 3F from my willow powder and see what it does.

As a side note, and you may already know this so take it for what it's worth. I worked for 25 years for the State Highway Department. Most of my job was construction inspection. Part of my training was to developed what they called a T-180, which is a moisture density curve on soils. This is where we used a constant compaction force and incrementally increased the percentage of moisture based on the dry mass of the sample. The density would increase as moisture was added until we reached the point we called optimum moisture. After that point the sample material would lose density with additional moisture added, that is what we called "pumping". The idea was that the water would provide lubrication for the soil partials to compact together until it came to a point that the lubrication was taking up too much space to permit the compaction.
I'm seeing the same thing with my powder. At 3.75% moisture added to compact my pucks, the best I can get is about 1.5 - 1.6 g/cc with my 20 ton jack. There was even a little moisture pressed out onto the bottom plate. I dried them and ground as if they were normal. They felt soft and they only yielded 46% of usable 2F powder. Weighing them against the same volume of Goex the powder , they were only 84%. With 4.5% moisture my normal pucks are about 1.75 g/cc puck density that will yield about 91 - 92% of what Goex powder weight and the usable 2F ground powder is in the 60 some percent range.
At 4.0% moisture my ground powder is comparing to about 94% of what Goex weighs for the same volume. I'm thinking that the 4.0% to 4.25% or 4.50% is about the top of the density curve. Above the that moisture, I'm thinking that the powder density is on the declining side of the curve and is beginning to lose ground. Like the different soils, I'm also thinking that maybe the different charcoals may require a little different amount moisture to achieve the maximum that it is capable of, something to think about and experiment with. I'm also thinking that the relative humidity may have some effect as to how much water you add.
Also where some guys are using a 12 ton jack vs a 20 ton jack vs a 6 ton jack to compact their powder, this may have an effect on how much moisture is necessary to get maximum density at that pressure. More moisture may be required with less compaction pressure. My mind is going down a rabbit hole now. More testing may be required.

[Trapper-Jack]

5/1/2024
I got to thinking about the speed difference between the Sassafras 2F and 3F (screen sizes of #16 - #30 for the 2F and #30 - #60 for the 3F). I separated some of my willow 2f with a kitchen spatter screen that is about a #20 mesh into #16 - #20 for the courser grains and #20 - #30 for the smaller ones. They screened out about 30/70% course and fine. I shot a 10 shot string of each this afternoon and was very pleased with the results. The extreme spread of the #16-30 blend went from 60 fps to 35 and 26 fps. The standard deviation went from 23 to 11 and 10. This is a reduction of approximately half.
60 grains Volume (Willow)
16-30 16-20 20-30
1 1328 1268 1330
2 1285 1266 1328
3 1306 1259 1306
4 1323 1274 1331
5 1285 1250 1309
6 1281 1251 1323
7 1268 1251 1305
8 1324 1271 1313
9 1328 1264 1315
10 1320 1285 1315
500 Grain Volume 552.8 561.2 551.6
% Weight to 2F 100.00% 101.52% 99.78%
Average Velocity 1304.8 1263.9 1317.5
ES 60 35 26
SD 23 11 10
Velocity per 2F 100% 103% 99%
FPS / grain Volume 21.7 21.1 22.0
FPS / grain Weight 22.7 22.6 24.4
Measure Setting 60 60 60
Powder Weight 57.4 56.0 54.0

5/3/2024
I got to thinking about the speed difference between the two screened sizes and the speed difference. I screen out two different batches and found a little variance between the two, 30/70% and 28/72%. In my mind it stands to reason that the heavier grains, the larger ones, will settle towards the bottom during transport and handling and the lighter, smaller grains, will float towards the top. Now I'm thinking a "what if" here, if the blend of coarse to fine changes from shot to shot as it is being poured from the container you are carrying it in, be it a flask, horn or a can or bottle. I'm thinking that if the blend changes then you will probably see it in the extreme spread of the velocity and depending on distance, see it in the impact placement on the target. This would be the same weather the charges were measured or weighed. Maybe this is another rabbit hole I'm going down but I think it may be worth a consideration. I'm thinking that at least for my own peace of mind, I'm going to screen all my 2F powder to the 20-30 screens. More velocity with less powder weight but in my mind, better constancy.

This was my process for testing the sassafras powder. As I said earlier, this isn't the end, but it's where I'm at now. I hope some of you can get a little to think about through this.
Jack

[Graysmoke]

I must agree with stevenDJ, the guidance I found here let me get the chance to home brew powder for sure. I worried about a blow up when milling till I re-read all the posts on it.
The results of my last test were very satisfying..home brew powder, caps, patches n lube, and a home brew rifle how could it get any better and yes stevenDJ I have iron sights on the hawken style 54.
Graysmoke

[DoubleBuck]

Trapper-Jack;
That is a great set of tests you made, and one of, if not the best write up I've seen on this forum.
Thank you and I hope continued testing answers some of the thoughtful questions you proposed. Excellent!

[DoubleBuck]

Graysmoke;
NICE!!!
Your report just goes to show what a huge difference something as little as .002" difference in patch thickness can affect outcomes. Great job with your powder, patches Rb's, and your obviously sweet rifle!!!

[indian joe]

[QUOTE=Trapper-Jack;

5/3/2024
I got to thinking about the speed difference between the two screened sizes and the speed difference. I screen out two different batches and found a little variance between the two, 30/70% and 28/72%. In my mind it stands to reason that the heavier grains, the larger ones, will settle towards the bottom during transport and handling and the lighter, smaller grains, will float towards the top. Now I'm thinking a "what if" here, if the blend of coarse to fine changes from shot to shot as it is being poured from the container you are carrying it in, be it a flask, horn or a can or bottle. I'm thinking that if the blend changes then you will probably see it in the extreme spread of the velocity and depending on distance, see it in the impact placement on the target. This would be the same weather the charges were measured or weighed. Maybe this is another rabbit hole I'm going down but I think it may be worth a consideration.

Not a rabbit hole ----
I am seriously diligent with screening my powder for cartridge rifles and have managed to shoot several tests of ten shot strings - not cleaned between shots and extreme spread under ten FPS (note ES NOT SD!) - My Cartridge no 2 (aka FFg) is 16 to 22 mesh - spread thin on the screen and shake it till nothing goes through - I screen onto clean sheets of A3 printer paper = can see and hear the fines leaving the screen. I apply the same level of diligence to weighing charges for those bigger cases and I reckon yhe results are worth it. Early in this forum one of the guys said "think we can make powder adequate for plinking and muzzleloaders but never gonna get it good enough for longrange competition" --I kinda saw that as a challenge and i reckon there a bunch of blokes here doin it (some of em maybe dont realise it because they dont play the long range game) - I dont either really but - we got --cleaner burning -- velocity between Swiss and Goex -- Extreme spread up there with the best -- whats missing ?

[Trapper-Jack]

Indian Joe:
I agree. I'm finding that the more consistently you can make your powder, both in composition and physical grain size, the more consistent your results will be. Lower ES and SD. I'm a believer for good powder, diligent screening is a must.

[DoubleBuck]

I was browsing for some information and found the Wichita Buggy Whip site Domain name expired. After some frustration, I found it in the archives, and if anyone is interested, here's a link to it. https://web.archive.org/web/20230722...oal_tests.html
Too much good Black Powder/Charcoal/Recipe information to let it disappear from the interwebs.
Carry on!

[HamGunner]

Indian Joe:
I agree. I'm finding that the more consistently you can make your powder, both in composition and physical grain size, the more consistent your results will be. Lower ES and SD. I'm a believer for good powder, diligent screening is a must.

I am certainly in agreement with this. Screening is very important and I have found that how one grinds the busted up pucks and amount and type of screening is also very important in order to reduce the fines.

I have found, and proven to myself again in my latest batch that I finished last week, that very thin pucks that are ground up soon after compression while still a bit damp, and ground fairly coarse and screened and anything still too large ground again at the same setting multiple times before decreasing the grinder setting, sure seems to help me reduce the fines. It does require a good bit more screening, but I found it to be well worth it in the reduction of the amount of fines.

This last batch, which was 2 1/2 pounds of new ingredients and 1/2 lb. of fines from the previous batch, only gave me probably 18 % fines when finished screening, as did the batch before. Those fines also include any 4F size as I only kept mostly 3F and just 1/2 lb. of 2F. Of the 3 lbs. of green meal, I ended up with barely another 1/2 lb. of fines that I will toss in to my next batch.

I have a 3" dia. compression die at close to 20 ton pressure and I now have been using six plastic Delrin dividers to give me seven very thin pucks per compression, which I attempt to give the same amount of pressure with each compression. I grind right away after compression while they are still a bit damp to help prevent as much dust as possible. I do the drying of the granulated powder spread out on cookie sheets after screening. The thin pucks are easily broken up with my hands to work through my grain grinder without the need for pliers or hammers, etc. This takes a lot of the work out of processing the pucks and I assume it also has helped in my reduction of fines as I do not seem to have nearly as much dust as I did before when I let much thicker pucks dry out for days prior to busting up and grinding.

Oh, and since I have been using TP for charcoal, not only has my density and strength increased, but the amount of work involved as well as the amount of nastiness has decreased to likely half as much as before. With my process that I use now, I can char up and mill a batch in the same day and then compress, grind up, and screen the next day, where as before it was a full week process if I had to wait for the pucks to dry out prior to grinding and the debarking of the wood, cutting up, charring, and then grinding of the charcoal used to take me all day in itself.

Once again, with this last batch, I have also proven to myself that one needs to have very dry ingredients prior to weighing out for milling in order to not only have the most accurate formula, but it also prevents caking in the mill. I dry my ingredients, except for the already dry charcoal, on cookie sheets in my oven on low temp for at least an hour or a bit more prior to weighing out for the mill. I have absolutely no caking in the mill and the milling time is reduced a good bit when your green meal is nothing but dry talcum powder-like consistency throughout the milling process.

With my 15 lb. capacity hexagon shaped Thumblers Tumbler type mill running at 60 rpm with around 12 lbs. of various sizes of lead ball and conical bullets from 12 gauge ball on down to .32 cal., 3 lbs. of dry green meal is done in 8 hours, but I give it an extra hour anyway. Even the green meal is fast burning, but at 94 % density of Goex by volume, I get almost the same velocity as Goex. I get as much if not more velocity than Goex if measured by weight. I am liking this TP BP.

[brian1]

Oh, and since I have been using TP for charcoal, not only has my density and strength increased, but the amount of work involved as well as the amount of nastiness has decreased to likely half as much as before. With my process that I use now, I can char up and mill a batch in the same day and then compress, grind up, and screen the next day, where as before it was a full week process if I had to wait for the pucks to dry out prior to grinding and the debarking of the wood, cutting up, charring, and then grinding of the charcoal used to take me all day in itself.

HamGunner - Lots of great tips. When you use TP for the charcoal part, do you put whole rolls into the retort, or do you unwind and stuff it in there? Is there already a post on here somewhere where you describe that process in some detail?

[HamGunner]

HamGunner - Lots of great tips. When you use TP for the charcoal part, do you put whole rolls into the retort, or do you unwind and stuff it in there? Is there already a post on here somewhere where you describe that process in some detail?

I remove the inner cardboard and then just compress and stuff three rolls into my retort. I have been using the heavy weight TP rolls such as Walmart Great Value Ultra Strength, which seem to have more weight per roll than most of the others. I did try Cottonell just to see if it was anything special, but it made a fair amount less charcoal as the rolls are really light weight compared to the Great Value rolls. I can barely squeeze three rolls of the Great Value into my retort, where as the three rolls of Cottonell easily fit into the retort without even squeezing the air out of the rolls. I have not tried Charmin, because one is not supposed to squeeze it.

I have made BP out of three different brands of TP and I can not tell any difference in the finished powder. The density and velocity potential seem to be close enough that I can not measure any difference in the different brands that I have tried.

I have been charring my wood, and now TP, in a large pressure pan. I place a perforated metal spacer plate into the bottom of the pressure pan to keep the charring material from touching the very hot bottom surface of the pressure pan. I also made up a round shaped guard for the insides of the pan out of some lightweight weld wire, so anything that I char must receive convection heat rather than direct heat from touching the pan itself. The pressure pan has a nipple shaped vent in the center of the lid where one places the pressure control weight and so I simply just insert my thermometer down through the vent and into the charring material for a fairly accurate temperature reading.

I heat it on my fish fryer burner, which only requires a low heat setting and I let the temperature of the inside get no higher than 575 degrees according to my thermometer and it only takes about one hour for the char to finish, with the results being a dark brown colored charcoal. The TP is still smoking a bit when it is complete. I suspect that, in my opinion, many are overcooking their charring material if they wait until it has completely stopped smoking, at which time it is likely coal black and not nearly as energetic as lesser charred material.

When done and cooled enough to not burst into flames, I dump the charred TP into my mill and mill it for about 30 minutes, at which time it is completely turned into air float charcoal. So much less nasty handling of the TP charcoal and the best part is that it takes almost all the work out of the preparation of charcoal, compared to the wood charcoal. I can char and mill the TP charcoal and have it ready to use in just a couple of hours and I don't look like I just climbed out of a coal mine when I am finished.

[elmacgyver0]

I have never done any of this but find the discussions fascinating.

[LAGS]

I kind of agree about using the Cottonelle.
It is way lighter and more expensive
It does perform just a Tiny bit better IMO , but I don’t think it is that great to put up with buying more paper and taking more time to make enough charcoal that you need .
Also,
The Cottonelle seems to burn up faster and is harder to catch it while it still has a brown tint to your charcoal .

[DoubleBuck]

HamGunner;
Night before last, I went to Dollar General for four rolls of Cottonelle Ultra Clean TP. My first single roll, a couple of months ago, was from Charmin Ultra Strong. When I saw the guy on Youtube used Cottonelle, I thought I would give it a fair shake, too. So, I cooked four rolls of it, and found it was much larger and more dense than the Charmin was, and made more charcoal. I'm glad to hear your great results with the WM brand versus the Cottonelle. If it is as good, I'll go with it next time. I could not tell a difference between the two, other than the quantity of finished Charcoal, and the single squares of Cottonelle were heavier, larger and more of them, per roll. I was hoping to get higher pressed puck density, but didn't get much difference.
This round, I first put one roll stuffed, and I mean stuffed; into a quart paint can, and then put it inside a gallon paint can, with a broken piece of a fire brick on bottom, and four pieces of broken fired clay pots my wife had thrown away, insulating and holding the quart can in place, to get the equivalent of the convection heat you described.
The quart can vent hole had a roofing nail in it and the gallon can vent, I left open. When the cook was done, I put a nail in it, as well, until it cooled. I put it all above a hot bed of Walnut coals which had my cooker up to about 400°f temperature. After letting it soak up heat, I brought the temp up to 550° until it cooked off the moisture and started to smoke. I watched it close and when the vent flame was still pretty strong, I started getting some violet flame and ended the cook.
I've noticed the toilet paper charcoal cools off much quicker than the same amount of wood, in the retort. Just a few minutes later, the can was cool to the touch. I thought it might not be cooked long enough, but opening it up, the cook was near perfect dark brown, from outside to inside. Very uniformly cooked. I think bringing the temperature up to the cooking point slowly, was why.
While that can was cooling, I was removing the cardboard and preparing my gallon can, with three rolls. The first I just set in the bottom of the can, on its end. The last two, I tore the rolls in a ragged half and stuffed the can full. They fit nicely tight, to the top.
I put the gallon can in the cooker at 300° over a refreshed set of hot coals; let it soak up to temperature and brought it up to 550°. My analog thermometer probe was at about the middle of the can, in height above the coals. Bringing it up slowly, it took about 45 minutes before the cook started to smoke. I just watch the vent fire to determine when I think it is done and this can full cooked pretty quickly. When the flame was still vigorous, I stopped it and the paper was beautiful dark brown, with the edges slightly darker, but not burned up.
It took me three jars full to mill it to airfloat and I did each jar about an hour. One went nearly two, when I let time get away.
I made a one pound batch of 75-15-10, with half in each of the two jars. I milled the first one for 12 hours, because I went to sleep. I intended to go 8 hours on it, but no harm. The second half has been milling for 7 hours. No clumping, leaks, squeaks, or vibrations; so far.
I'm going to make a half pound batch of 77-13-10, to see if that makes any difference in velocity, accuracy, or clean burn. I have not had much luck with increased Nitrate and decreased Charcoal, in the past; but I have not tried it on the TP, yet. It will be interesting to see if it works for the good, here.
My last venture made five grams less than a pound of green meal, from one roll of paper. If this batch turns out as well, or better, the $5.48 price is definitely worth the saved labor, and mess of cooking wood, to get four pounds of finished powder. The uniformity of the charcoal is very impressive to me.
I should be able to tell if this paper cooked brown is an advantage, as well. If it isn't, it's missing a good opportunity. I think it is the best appearing cook I've made to date, save one.
The rest of the Charcoal, I plan to make a couple of tests with, that Linstrum and I have been co-conspiring on, to see if a couple of tweaks can be an advantage in end results. Not reinventing the wheel on anything; just minor changes and additions. He has some very interesting ideas.
I'm glad to see others trying out the TP powder. I hope it works out the best for you and all of us. Buck

[HamGunner]

DoubleBuck

Sounds like you have it down pretty good to me. Most of us have surely progressed a long way since we first started making BP. I know that I have figured out a bunch of short cuts and easier methods to get through all the processes to where it is not nearly as tedious and labor intensive. Not to mention a whole lot less nasty working up the charcoal. I was always glad to get the charcoal charred and ground up before as that seemed to be at least 2/3 rds of the effort in making BP and certainly the nastiest.

I went through probably a half dozen different methods of charring my woods until I found the fastest and most accurate method that I could easily do. I am sure the quality of my charcoal is much better and more consistent and that is so important in making good quality BP that is consistent from batch to batch.

I probably mentioned it before, but since I have been using TP for charcoal, I seem to notice a bit less smoke and certainly less sulfur smell and the cylinders and bores seem to be less dirty. TP apparently leaves a drier residue than other charcoals. I suppose it should be cleaner as TP has such a low ash level that it is hard to find enough during a test to even measure.

[Graysmoke]

HamGunner when using the pressure pot and the thermometer is in the port thereby plugging the vent will you get an overpressure problem. I want to try charing tp your way but worried no vent will pop the top due to gass build up. Or do you remove the safty plug to vent? I am looking to get cleaner powder, I lined my rubber tub with pvc, I was lead to believe that was contributing to more fouling.
Graysmoke

[HamGunner]

HamGunner when using the pressure pot and the thermometer is in the port thereby plugging the vent will you get an overpressure problem. I want to try charing tp your way but worried no vent will pop the top due to gass build up. Or do you remove the safty plug to vent? I am looking to get cleaner powder, I lined my rubber tub with pvc, I was lead to believe that was contributing to more fouling.
Graysmoke

My pressure pan leaks the pressure and smoke out between the lid and the bottom pan. Since the silicone gasket that is normally used for pressure cooking can not take the higher heat needed for charring, I just removed and discarded it. A seal between the lid and the pan is not needed as they are made to have a fairly tight fit anyway and there is plenty of pressure and smoke that wants to escape, so no oxygen gets in. In fact, they fit so close that I normally have to tap the lid handle with something to break it loose from the pan because of the creosote that has seeped out which tries to seal the lid down.

When my char is done, (smoke changing color from gray to more of a bluish color and slowing down a good bit) I just quickly take the top off and dump the charred wood or TP into a metal container that I can seal air tight for cooling. If left in the pressure pan to cool, oxygen could certainly be sucked back into the hot charred material and ignite it. But quickly dumping it out into an air tight metal container is not a problem.

I do not give the pressure pan a whole lot of heat or fire at first, but rather just give it medium heat and let it slowly build up heat inside so that I can get a more even char all the way through whatever I want charred. I have timed my char and it takes about 30 minutes for the inside temperature to get up to 500 degrees. I then carefully monitor and regulate the heat until the thermometer stops climbing at around 575 degrees. It is really easy to race on past 600 degrees if one is not monitoring the gauge and adjusting the heat. I hold at 575 degrees for about 20 minutes and the smoke will slow down and slightly change color, indicating that it is probably finished charring.

When I used the pressure pan the first time, I cracked the lid and quickly checked the char and with trial and error, I have it down to right at one hour and it is finished to a dark brown color char.

My pressure pan is probably 12" diameter and likely would hold about 6 qts. of water I suspect. I can cram in three rolls of TP on top of the bottom separating plate and inside the weld wire side protector. From my experience, one roll of TP will normally make just over 1/2 lb. of BP.

One could certainly sacrifice for use, a regular (larger) pressure cooker and char a whole lot more at once, but in two hours, I have enough charcoal to make up a 3 lb. batch of BP by just using this old large size aluminum pressure pan that I found at a flea market. Momma would not even want to hear of me trying to use her pressure pans or cookers.

Note: My cheap pressure pan is aluminum and the extra heat needed for charring caused the bottom to become convex or rounded shaped, which actually gives it more space between the bottom of the pan and the charring Wood or TP. This indicates that there is much more heat involved than normal pressure cooking, but of course, there is no liquid inside the pan to help keep the bottom from getting so hot, thus the distortion of the bottom.