someguy3Have you ever seen coal burn? If yes, why?
deegeeseDon’t go to a lot of BBQs, I take it?
🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 🏆Charcoal isn’t coal. There are several types of natural coal and charcoal, and they all have slight differences in density and chemical composition; so they probably all look a bit different when burning. Just like how different brands and types of charcoal can also look slightly different when burning (such as one kind throwing off sparks while it ignites and another that doesn’t).
I’ve never seen natural coal burning. But I’ve seen at least 3 types (not just brands but actual differences in how they are made) of charcoal burn, and they all give quite a different “show” as they do.
Real coal.
scorpionixEhrm yes, that’s also ‘real’ coal. There are multiple types of coal.
ShadowIt might have a bit of coal in it, but it’s not coal.
What is charcoal? And how is it different from coal?
I’m in the stage of my reading where my knowledge of how much there is to learn is expanding faster than my actual knowledge. So the more I read, the more I realize how ignorant I am of the very basics of industrial civilization. So many simple questions I’d never even thought of, let alone knew the answer to.
agent_flounderzgrills.com.au/coal-vs-charcoal
Coal is a natural mineral that forms over the span of millions of years while charcoal is a manufactured product created from wood. While coal in its natural state is never used alone in a barbeque or smoker, it is commonly added to charcoal briquettes to increase the energy density.
A lot of homes where I grew up still had coal fires, so yes, a lot, but its been a long while since I have seen a coal fire.
Charcoal as the other commenter said i still see regularly on bbq’s
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Where did you grow up?
GreyShuckWe used to have a coal fire when I was growing up, so routinely in the winters.
radixI did an hour of a metalworking class at scout camp in the 80s.
VanthCharcoal for cooking on a grill is most frequent and normal.
Because of schooling and work, I’ve seen it burned in power plants and burned it myself in a laboratory setting (comparing bituminous to anthracite to others). My sister volunteers at a historical blacksmith shop, they have a couple different demonstration furnaces and one burns coal. There’s also a steam engine demonstrator that runs on coal, but they don’t fire that one up very often.
When I was a little kid, so young my memories are very hazy, i was taken to see the sod house my great grandma grew up in before it was torn down. They used coal for heating.
Do bituminous and anthracite burn differently? Visually or otherwise?
I’ve heard bi-tuminous. Hard “I”, like in bi-cycle. And bit-uminous, soft “I” like in “he bit into the apple”.
I have never heard the “t” turned into a “tch” sound.
It might be more bich-you-men.
So what’s the difference in coals? I’m actually interested if they visually burn differently.
While growing up my family’s home had heating stoves capable of burning both wood and coal. While we primarily burned wood, coal would sometimes be used, particularly on nights when it was really cold out as it tended to burn hotter and usually burned longer than wood of the same volume.
cygnosisI’ve done some blacksmithing as a hobby. The two most common ways of heating the metal are a gas furnace and a coal forge. The forge normally has some sort of forced air coming from the bottom to feed the fire. The coal starts burning real smoky like, but then turns to coke and burns hotter the more air you force through it. Typically you pile some coal around the sides of the fire so it converts to coke then you scoop it into the fire as needed. Also it produces a waste product called kilnker that builds up at the bottom of the fire at the tuyere (the nozzle or grate the air is forced throug). It’s kind of like stone or metal and it needs to be cleaned out to keep the fire going.
Fun fact for those who don't know. You can forge metal with a wood fire if you have forced air.
There are also ways to build a clay oven so that it has a natural updraft, giving it that forced air. It's actually how people used to fire pottery.
Other than that, you can also use charcoal, which burns hotter with forced air.
Also, a hairdryer puts out enough air to forge with *unless you're running a ribbon burner set-up. But if you are, you likely know that already.
-A fellow hobbyist blacksmith
*Edit to add a word.
Most smithing was done for centuries with charcoal.
Used to have a coal fire when I was growing up in the 90s, rural Wales, was able to heat our water too.
Nothing beats a baked potato cooked under a coal fire.
Where the fires were was around the North and North East of Scotland. Coal man used to come round in a truck, filthy black from the coal, load up the bunkers. I remember it being very messy, sooty, but it was less smokey than the peat fires, though coal didn’t smell as nice.
There is something really nice about a real fire, though they’re not clean.
I doubt many of any of those houses have now, gas came along and there was a lot of change.
AukYes. I picked a bunch of coal pieces up at Stockton beach once as a kid and took them home because coal was interesting - I tested burning at least one of those pieces in the wood fire that winter.
MxM111Because I have eyes?
Yes, my grandparents had a potbelly stove that they used for heat. A coal tripple was about a quarter of a mile from our house and we could walk down the railroad tracks and collect a bucket full.
Yes, I have seen and lit it several times.
I was often in charge of lighting the grill when I lived at home with my parents, we used a hot air gun to light the grill, and it worked really well, we never used lighter fluid, just hot air, and during the process you easily see flames comming up from the burning coal.
Failing that, I used to be an active member of a herritage railroad with steam trains, looking into the firebox of a steam enging you clearly see the coals burning.
Why would you not do that?
I’m talking real coal, not charcoal.
Yes, growing up. Even saw it get made, though I don't remember much. Perks of being part of the peasantry I suppose...
We had to make it ourselves because it was too expensive to buy. Used a little bit for everything, cooking, heating, making booze.
Then things changed, laws passed, gas became cheaper and coal-making was forgotten because it was too much work for too little gain.
You may be thinking of charcoal. Coal is a mineral that is mined and is a fossil fuel.
HorseChandelierYes. In the Aga at home and the coal fire in the living room. Also in the grate at a friend’s house.
Why? Aga for cooking and hot water, coal stove for heat, likewise coal in a grate.
Yes. I got to look around a steam train when they were doing trips for Father’s Day. I even got to keep a piece as a momento.
Yes. Steam train
Yes. Grew up in a house without central heating. Learned to build up and maintain fire in an oven as a kid.
Worked at a coal mine. The dust can be very flammable.
LudrolYes, I have coal furnace + boiler as a central heating installation.
No, but this topic sent me down a rabbit hole briefly.
You may have heard of the Marshall Fire in Boulder, Colorado that burned 1000 homes and killed two people within the city in 2021.
In the area of the point of ignition of this wildfire, an underground coal fire has been known to be burning for the past 150 years. As far as I know they still haven’t ruled it out as a possible cause.
NaNThe fact that the city decided to build over that is nuts.
snooggumsIt was the opposite of a flood plain, but the land was just as cheap!
CaptainBlagbirdThey didn’t start the fire, it was always burning 🎶
Yep. Grew up in a house with a wood stove as the only source of heat, and my parents would occasionally use some coal in it. Dad also had a coal forge for hobby blacksmithing.
WodgeYes. Am Welsh. Coal fires are still pretty common in the South Wales valleys. My Grandfather still gets free coal deliveries every other month due to his time working in the pits.
Omg they’re not phasing it out? jfc
As in part off his pension is free coal for life?
Could ever have a lump sum or coal for life, he picked the coal as the cash payout was around £5000, which would cover the coal cost for about 3 years at the time. He’s been having that for over 30 years at this point, pretty good deal!
PyroWhat if he picked the lump sum and received a giant lump of coal worth £5000
Rode in an old steam train that has a boiler fueled by coal. Got to see the furnace* that heated the boiler have some fresh coal shoveled in before we went for a short ride.
*I don't remember if it is called a furnace on a train, it was a few decades ago and I'm too lazy to look it up.
If my son’s 9000 train-related books are to be trusted, I think it’s called a “firebox”.
SubArcticTundraCoal stoves are still sometimes the principal source of heat for rural houses in Eastern Europe. They are slowly being phased out though.
talThere are apparently a few people here and there who still use it. I remmber reading some article about a guy in the US who preferred it.
googles
npr.org/…/for-the-few-who-heat-homes-with-coal-it…
Every few weeks, John Ord does something unusual for most people living in 2019 — he stops by a local hardware store in rural northeastern Pennsylvania to buy coal to heat his home.
Ord’s coal-burning stove burns 24 hours a day when it’s cold. He likes the constant heat it gives off and says it’s cheaper than his other options — oil and electric.
What’s the difference?
One you can mine from the ground.
The other you get by smelting oak wood logs
xigoiYou can also get the former by killing wither skeletons, making it a renewable resource.
Coal is mined out of the ground.
Charcoal is wood that has been super heated to remove the water.
Charcoal is wood that has been heated above combustion temperature without oxygen. That does drive off water, but it also chemically decomposes the lignin and other organics into primarily carbon while creating a volatile mixture of gasses known as woodgas.
Source: Have a woodgas generator. Byproduct is charcoal.
ZonetrooperIn a steam locomotive, but a scale model one that was ridden on instead of in. It was actually pretty cool; they still hand-stoked the firebox and everything, just… really small.
I rode one of those but it must have been gas or diesel.
Yep. When I was young, we had a stove in my house for heat that burnt coal or wood. We mostly burnt coal in it.
I lived in wv, you find chunks of it out in the ground sometimes. I was a curious kid and tried to get some to light. It was real low quality though so it burnt like shit
Yes. In a fire. Why?
Yes. On a camping trip. At one end of the lake is the remains of an old WWII POW camp. There were at the time some small piles of coal. We took a couple of prices and burned it in a camp fire. Only because I had never seen coal burn before.
JayYes. Used to build and install coal boilers for hot water heating systems.
Yep, I dabble in blacksmithing.
You get it going -smokey as shit at first-and it melts together into a lighter, more solid piece that burns hotter and cleaner. That's called coke.
Then you toss your irons in