Chemist - charcoal and charred wood

Rocky_Creek · Post by **Rocky_Creek** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 9:56 am

Somewhere I read that there are various salts in charcoal when produced that might not be good for you. Is charcoal used in distilling washed in any way to remove salts, or ignored?

The Chemist · Post by **The Chemist** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 10:11 am

Of course, ANYTHING is bad for you in high doses. Any salts produced in making charcoal are going to be in such small quantities that I wouldn't worry about them. Of more concern would be homemade charcoal that wasn't completely carbonized. You could get some nasty pyrolysis products with incomplete charring.

Rocky_Creek · Post by **Rocky_Creek** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 10:44 am

Would that not apply to chared wood, which of course is incomplete?

The Chemist · Post by **The Chemist** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:20 am

When you char wood, there's plenty of air around, so combustion proceeds well, even though it's not completely burned. When you make charcoal, there isn't any oxygen around, so you can get lots of nasty by-products.

Rocky_Creek · Post by **Rocky_Creek** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:26 am

Got it. Thanks.