Thailand charcoal kiln

[Miles]

I'm fortunate enough to have had a group of great friends for the last forty or so years. One such saw fit to get me and my wife to there place in Thailand, where we met up with five others whom I skydived with in the 70s and 80s along with our wives. Al,said friend, has a charcoal kiln on his property, a low key type of resort, kind of like camping with cabins. They use the charcoal for most of the cooking and also some propane or butane.
The kiln is made of brick and covered with clay, there is an arch opening in the front and three vents around the outside running from openings in the bottom to let air in under the wood to the three openings in the sides near the top. Once the rounds of wood are stacked inside and lit and the fire is going good, the front opening is closed off and the fire is fed by the vents. After the coallier is sure the wood is fully engulfed in flame he closes off the vents and waits a few days before opening the front arch to recover the charcoal.

I'll attach a few photos of the kiln and what it's charcoal cooks.

[Big T]

Well that's definitely something that you don't see every day.

[Miles]

After seeing Al's kiln I plan on using block instead of the outer drum in my kiln, I think the block will insulate better than the steel drum and may cut down on fuel needed for the process.

[ajfoxy]

Definitely something different.

[Squiggle]

Looks very cool dude

[temurf]

That is awesome.

[Pete Mazz]

Nice!!

[Stewart]

Pretty cool stuff

[Rodcrafter]

I wonder about insulating between 2 outer layers of steel and have the one holding the charcoal in the center? It seems like once the off gassing process starts the outer surface doesn't get all that hot right? In that case it would only serve during the startup, is that right?

I would like to make one also, I have had some bad lump charcoal lately. So if I made my own it would be good wood.

[Miles]

Yes it was quite interesting to see how that home made one worked compared to mine.
Wood is scarce there now and cutting teak is banned. Used to be poorer people built their houses with wood and rich folks used concrete, now it's the other way around. They salvage any pieces of wood they can get. Whenever a clearing is made or trees cut down along the roadside or an old plantation is re-planted the wood gets collected and hauled away, even 3 foot pieces. Some is cut into small pieces for furniture or moulding and a lot is used for making charcoal. I passed a number of larger commercial operations that made charcoal and then used it to fire building bricks. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos or them.

Having two outer skins with insulation between may work well, you'll have to try and let us know.The outside of my drum got very hot when the gas off started, all that flame was burning between the inner and outer drum and shooting out the opening in the bottom of the outer drum.